Interview with Philipe Bujold
- Merle van den Akker
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Behavioural Science is a rapidly expanding field and everyday new research is being developed in academia, tested and implemented by practitioners in financial organisations, development agencies, government ‘nudge’ units and more. This interview is part of a series interviewing prominent people in the field. And in today's interview the answers are provided by Philipe Bujold.
Phil is a senior behavioral scientist at Rare’s Center for Behavior & the Environment, working to better understand and address environmental challenges through the lens of human behavior. He works closely with NGOs and government partners to translate behavioral insights into scalable behavior-change interventions, leading research and design on climate-smart agriculture projects, regenerative grazing, and sustainable fishing, among others. Philipe holds a PhD in behavioral neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, where he previously studied the neural algorithms that bias decision-making
Who or what got you into behavioural science?
Honestly, I wish I could say I just fell into it, but looking back from high school through undergrad and my PhD, I always had a pretty clear path—even if the final destination was a bit of a surprise. I’ve always been fascinated by animal behavior (especially primates), and as I started studying, I merged that interest with neuroscience, behavioral economics, and game theory. It wasn’t a stretch to dive into human behavior and apply those insights to real-world issues. Plus, since governments are falling short on tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, using behavioral science in this area just made sense to me.
What is the accomplishment you are proudest of as a behavioural scientist?
My career’s still relatively short, but some of my proudest moments have been when we’ve managed to get people to not just recognize the importance of behavioral science but actually take action on it.
A few years ago, for instance, my colleagues and I partnered with the Global Environment Facility (GEF)—one of the biggest funders of environmental work—to help their fundees ensure behavior change targets were clear and their strategies evidence-based. This meant we weren’t just working with direct partners but were nudging the entire network of GEF projects (which is potentially field-changing!) to make their interventions more behavior-centric.
Beyond that, working on Rare’s Lands for Life and Fish Forever programs has been incredibly rewarding. From co-designing intervention strategies with local teams to visiting farmers and fishers and hearing firsthand how these programs have improved their lives and the ecosystems they depend on—it’s those moments that make the work feel truly meaningful.
If you weren’t a behavioural scientist, what would you be doing?
Without a doubt, I’d be a primatologist. Anyone who knows me understands that my fascination with human behavior largely stems from the fact that we’re primates. That’s why I pursued my PhD, why I specialize in environmental and conservation work now, and why I choose my holiday destinations based on the primates I can see haha.
But I became a behavioral scientist because, while studying primates is incredibly fascinating, this path allows me to do something just as meaningful: work with amazing primatologists to ensure that these beautiful animals (and us, for that matter) survive into the future.
How do you apply behavioural science in your personal life?
Merle, you're really putting me on the spot here! I tend to nudge myself a lot because I’m extremely forgetful. For example, when I leave for the beach or a hike here in Australia, I often forget my towel. So, what do I do? I’ve put up a printed poster on the back of the cabinet door where I store my backpacking gear that says: "Do you have your towel (and your snake bandages)?" The snake bandages might not be as useful outside Australia, so focus on the towel reminder.
I’ve also done something similar with my glass refill bottles for milk. We used to store them with other glassware, but now the empty bottles are by the door. It’s not the most aesthetic setup, but it's great for behavior change!
With all your experience, what skills would you say are needed to be a behavioural scientist? Are there any recommendations you would make?
First and foremost, learn to be adaptable. Being a behavioral scientist means tackling tasks you never really prepared for, and some of my biggest successes have started with me thinking, "I have no idea how to do this, but I can learn."
Strong critical thinking and research skills are essential, especially the ability to critically evaluate your own work and recognize when you or your team don’t know something. Letting go of your ego is a skill in itself.
Lastly, and this is something not many people mention, your impact often depends on your people skills. Be approachable, value and make space for others’ ideas, and communicate effectively so that stakeholders seek your advice instead of avoiding you due to criticism.
How do you think behavioural economics will develop (in the next 10 years)?
I think in the next decade, we’re finally going to move beyond just creating behaviorally-informed interventions for downstream actors and start targeting the big players upstream—like policy-makers, corporations, and city leaders. By focusing on these upstream actors, we can help prevent problems before they even start or implement a few well-placed changes that have a bigger impact downstream.
I also see evaluation becoming a bigger part of policy-making, which will help us tackle many of the replication issues behavioral science has been dealing with.
What advice would you give to young behavioural scientists or those looking to progress into the field?
As much as it pains me to say, being a generalist behavioral scientist means you'll be competing for recognition in an ever-growing pool of talent. To really stand out, focus on developing expertise in a specific area. Don’t just aim to be a behavioral scientist—be one who specializes in public health, finance, environmental work, or another niche. And if you can’t land a job or internship in behavioral science right away, don’t panic. Instead, pursue something that builds your subject matter expertise, so you can later combine that with your behavioral science training.
Which other behavioural scientists would you love to read an interview by?
Kristian Nielsen is really at the forefront of mainstreaming behavioral science within the climate change space, and I’d love to hear more about his insights. Laura Thomas-Walters at Yale and Ganga Shreedar from the London School of Economics are also doing fantastic work. It would be fascinating to hear their perspectives on where they see the field heading.
What are the greatest challenges being faced by behavioural science, right now?
For me, beyond the commonly mentioned issues like replicability and the contextualization of interventions, a looming challenge is reconciling the last decade of “insights” our field has produced. Essentially, we’ve failed to rein in the creation of new theories, biases, definitions, etc., and to shift our focus toward integrating the effects we’re observing into cohesive models of decision-making. I touched on this in my PhD thesis years ago—that behavioral science was struggling to bridge the gap between idealized decision models and the way the brain actually works—and I haven’t seen a significant push to move past that.
Sure, we’ve made progress in moving beyond prescribing “rational choices” to describing real behavior… and then doing more of that … but too often, behavioral scientists either don’t understand—or don’t want to understand—whether the theories they propose are actually supported by how the neurons process the information they receive (I’m looking at you, System 1 and 2).
If the field is going to move beyond the lab and low-hanging fruit into addressing complex systems like climate change or pandemics, we need to get better at understanding when and why interventions work—and when they don’t. This isn’t a novel point—many have said it—but there’s still a failure to recognize that we’re focusing on the “what” and “why” of decision-making while mostly ignoring the “how.” Unless we reverse that, we’ll just keep swinging in the dark, hoping to hit something, instead of taking the time to aim and make better, more efficient progress.
What is your biggest frustration with the field as it stands?
I’m sure readers can guess some of my frustrations from my previous answer, haha. But since I work in the environmental space, I want to highlight a specific issue there: the lack of intervention evaluations (and funding for it) in conservation. There’s so little money and time to save nature – we really can’t afford not to maximize our impact at every turn – yet very few people can reliably say whether the work they’re doing is having a positive impact. We know a lot about how behaviors can affect nature; now we need to ensure we understand what works and what doesn’t when it comes to promoting those behaviors.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions Phil!
As I said before, this interview is part of a larger series which can also be found here on the blog. Make sure you don't miss any of those, nor any of the upcoming interviews!
Keep your eye on Money on the Mind!
