Dr. Ralph Keeney has received the CREATE von Winterfeldt Award for Outstanding Research in recognition of his exceptional contributions to the field of Decision Analysis, advancing the theory and use of multiattribute utility functions and value-focused thinking.
Keeney has applied his research to important practical and policy areas in many large companies and governmental agencies in the U.S. and Europe. Toward that end, he also created and managed the decision and risk analysis group in an engineering-environmental consulting firm. In addition, Keeney has developed tools and methods for practical decision-making for non-experts. In accepting the award, Keeney stated “My passion is to help individuals and organizations improve their decision-making skills.”
As an author of books translated into multiple languages, Keeney wrote Decisions with Multiple Objectives with Howard Raiffa (1976, 1993); Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decisionmaking (1992); Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions, with John S. Hammond and Howard Raiffa (1999); and Give Yourself a Nudge: Helping Smart People Make Smarter Personal and Business Decisions (2020). He is also the author of more than 100 articles in major academic journals (see ralphkeeney.com).
Keeney is Research Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at Duke University and a Professor Emeritus for the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at USC. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Waterloo in Canada and has been a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering since 1995. Keeney received a Ph.D. in engineering and operations research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a former MIT faculty member.
As recounted by Detlof von Winterfeldt, “Shortly after its start in 2004, CREATE established a scientific advisory committee and appointed Ralph Keeney as its chair. Under his leadership, projects were evaluated for their scientific content and policy, tightening CREATE’s focus on the most important work. Throughout his tenure as committee chair, Ralph rigorously evaluated CREATE projects, assuring that CREATE’s research was scientifically sound while responding to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs.” Keeney also actively participated in CREATE’s research, working on a value model for homeland security decisions (see Keeney and von Winterfeldt, 2011) and modeling values for anti-terrorism (Keeney, 2007). More recently his research interests have focused on preparing for major crises (Keeney, Gregory, and Slovic, 2025).
CREATE Senior Research Fellow and USC Psychology Department Professor Richard John praised Keeney, stating that “He has had an enormous influence on the fields of decision analysis and risk analysis. As both a CREATE researcher and chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), Keeney’s work was instrumental in structuring decision-makers’ values in planning for and responding to threats and emergencies. His work profoundly influenced my research (and that of many others) on adversary values and objectives.”
The von Winterfeldt award honors Detlof von Winterfeldt, Professor Emeritus in USC’s Epstein Department and co-founder and former director of CREATE. The first recipient of the award was Milind Tambe, Harvard professor and previously Professor of Computer Science in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
Selected References
Hammond, J.S., Keeney, R.L., & Raiffa, H. (1999). Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN-10: 0875848575
Keeney, R. L. (2007). Modeling values for anti-terrorism analysis. Risk Analysis, 27 (3), 585-596. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2007.00910.x
Keeney, R.L. (2020). Give Yourself a Nudge: Helping Smart People Make Smarter Personal and Business Decisions. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108776707
Keeney, R.L., & Raiffa, H. (1976). Decisions with Multiple Objectives. New York: Wiley 1993. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174084
Keeney, R.L. & von Winterfeldt, D. (2011). A value model to evaluate homeland security decisions. Risk Analysis, 31 (9), 1470-1481. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2011.01597.x
Keeney, R.L, Gregory, R. & Slovic, P. (2025). Proactively planning for possible future crises. Decision Analysis, 22 (4), 273-283. https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2024.0293
Posted August 7, 2026