Poornima Madhavan is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, where she is also the Director of Undergraduate Research. She received her Ph.D. in Engineering Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in the Dynamic Decision Making Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. Currently, Dr. Madhavan is the director of the Applied Decision Making Laboratory at ODU where she supervises multiple projects that examine the study of human decision making in complex environments that embody risk, stress, time pressure and uncertainty, and the intesection of science and public policy. Recently, she has been studying decision processes that impact the adaptation of coastal communities such as Norfolk (Virginia) to climate change and sea level rise. Her research helps understand why communications on climate change are failing to get public attention, what can be done to create a sense of urgency required for public discourse and action, and how to encourage the development of public support for policies that lead to environmental resiliency.