Tom Griffiths

Tom Griffiths was born in London and moved with his family to Perth, Australia, at age eight. He studied psychology at the University of Western Australia, then earned a PhD in psychology at Stanford University in 2005.

He studies how people reason and learn, and he uses ideas from statistics and computer science to model the human mind. He taught at Brown University and the University of California, Berkeley, where he directed the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences. In 2018 he moved to Princeton University, where he is a professor of psychology and computer science.

He wrote Algorithms to Live By (2016) with the writer Brian Christian. The book takes problems that computer scientists have studied, such as when to stop searching, how to sort and how to schedule, and applies them to everyday choices like finding an apartment or a partner. It argues that these solutions can make hard choices simpler and help people judge a decision by its process, not its luck. His 2026 book The Laws of Thought traces the search for a mathematical theory of the mind.