Jean Decety, former fellow at the Paris IAS, elevated as the John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago

Jean Decety, professor of psychology and psychiatry and former fellow for writing residency in 2021, 2022 and 2024 at the Paris IAS has been named the John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Psychology in the University of Chicago.

Jean Decety is a French-American neuroscientist. He is professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago and Director of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory. A pioneering scholar who helped to establish the field of social neuroscience and who is recognized for field-defining research on moral cognition and empathy, Jean Decety has shaped what is now a dominant approach in psychological science—using brain imaging to inform scientific understanding of the social mind.His research spans cognitive neuroscience, developmental science, and global approaches,  pursuing understanding of the perception and analysis of others’ actions and the mental simulation of actions.

His ground-breaking bodies of research with children around the world, with medical residents, and with psychopaths probes the origins and limits of human empathy. In his latest work, he interrogates tensions that arise in reasoning about conflicting moral values, in particular the value on preserving life and ensuring individual autonomy in decisions about assisted suicide. 

After a PhD in Neuroscience-Medicine from the University Claude Bernard, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden in the Departments of Clinical Neurophysiology and Neuroradiology, he joined the University of Chicago as a senior faculty member in 2004, having held prior positions at the University of Washington, Seattle and INSERM in Lyon, France. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, the Pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences, and an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for Psychological Science. He is one of the most highly cited scholars in social neuroscience, Jean has authored hundreds of scientific publications.