Rate My Professor Guy Hawkins

Guy Hawkins is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He earned a Bachelor of Psychology with First Class Honours in 2008 and a Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology in 2013, both from the University of Newcastle. Hawkins began his postdoctoral career as a Research Associate at the University of New South Wales from January 2013 to June 2014, followed by a position at the University of Amsterdam from August 2014 to December 2016. He returned to the University of Newcastle as an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Fellow from January 2017 to December 2019. Subsequently, he advanced through the ranks as Lecturer from January 2020 to December 2021, Senior Lecturer from January 2022 to December 2024, and Associate Professor from January 2025 to present.

Hawkins develops and tests computational and mathematical models of cognitive processes, with a primary focus on the psychology of decision making. His work examines decision mechanisms and strategies for selecting consumer products and services, statistical reasoning, consumer preferences, domain-general mechanisms across low-level perceptual decisions and high-level cognition, and updating caution relative to time frames and option quality. Research fields include decision making (70%), psychological methodology, design and analysis (20%), and sensory processes, perception and performance (10%). He has received the Faculty of Science Award for Early Career Research and Innovation Excellence (2017), Vice-Chancellor's Award for Early Career Research and Innovation Excellence (2017), Fellowship of the Psychonomic Society (2018), William K. Estes Early Career Award from the Society for Mathematical Psychology (2020), and John Keats Early Career Award from the Society for Mathematical Psychology (2024). Key publications include 'Racing Against the Clock: Evidence-Based Versus Time-Based Decisions' (Psychological Review, 2021), 'Time-Evolving Psychological Processes Over Repeated Decisions' (Psychological Review, 2022), 'Self-reported mind wandering reflects executive control and selective attention' (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2022), 'The standard relationship between choice frequency and choice time is violated in multi-attribute preferential choice' (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 2023), 'Hierarchical Bayesian estimation for cognitive models using Particle Metropolis within Gibbs (PMwG): A tutorial' (Behavior Research Methods, 2026), and 'Cognitive Models as a Tool to Link Decision Behavior with EEG Signals' (2024).