Rate My Professor Andrew Perfors
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Creates a collaborative learning environment.
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About Andrew
Andrew Perfors is Professor of Psychology in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne, a position he has held since 2017, becoming full Professor in January 2023. He is Director of the Complex Human Data Hub since 2022, Deputy Director from 2017-2022, and leader of the Computational Cognitive Science lab. Prior to this, he was at the University of Adelaide School of Psychology from 2008 to 2017, starting as Lecturer, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2012 and Associate Professor in 2016. His academic journey began with a B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University in 1999 (with distinction and honors), an M.A. in Linguistics from Stanford in 2000, and a Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT in 2008, with a thesis on learnability, representation, and language using a Bayesian approach.
Perfors' research focuses on quantitative approaches to higher-order cognition, utilizing computational models and behavioral experiments to study concepts, language acquisition, decision-making, and the transmission of information and misinformation. He examines the goals of human learners and reasoners, along with cognitive, informational, environmental, and social constraints influencing individual and group behavior. Among his influential publications are "A tutorial introduction to Bayesian models of cognitive development" (Perfors et al., 2011, Cognition), highly cited in the field; "Trans-inclusive gender categories are cognitively natural" (Perfors et al., 2023, Nature Human Behaviour); "How convincing is a crowd? Quantifying the persuasiveness of a consensus for different individuals and types of claims" (Alister et al., 2025, Psychological Science); "Predictive processing, rational constructivism, and Bayesian models of development" (Perfors, 2024, Topics in Cognitive Science); and "Language evolution can be shaped by the structure of the world" (Perfors & Navarro, 2014, Cognitive Science). He has co-authored books like "Empiricism and language learnability" (2015) and edited proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society (2022).
His contributions extend to securing major grants, including ARC Discovery Projects as Chief Investigator such as DP240101873 (2024-2027, $685,330) on semantic variation and DP180103600 (2018-2021) on inductive biases. Perfors has received prestigious awards for teaching and research, notably the MSPS Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching (2022, University of Melbourne), NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2007), NDSEG Fellowship (2004-2006), and the Firestone Medal (1999, Stanford). Additionally, he serves as Academic Lead for LGBTIQA+ Inclusion at the University of Melbourne since 2024.
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