Philosophy professor and graduate alumna Lara Buchak receives Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement

Lara Buchak, professor of philosophy, has received a 2026 Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters. She is among 10 recipients of the prize, awarded at a Nov. 4 ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Buchak has taught at Princeton since 2020. Her research interests include decision theory, social choice theory, epistemology, ethics and the philosophy of religion. 

“Lara Buchak’s pathbreaking contributions to decision theory help us think more clearly about how to determine what we ought to believe and do,” the academy said in its citation. “Her work on such classic philosophical problems as applying rationality to risk tolerance, epistemology, game theory, free will, moral norms, and the transcendent has applications across ethics and political philosophy as well as in science, religion and society.”

The citation also spotlighted Buchak’s impact on the study and practice of the humanities. 

The AASL, established in 2023, “promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences, and learned professions,” according to the Barry Prize announcement. The award honors “scholars of extraordinary achievement and dedication to excellence in the arts, sciences and learned professions.” 

Buchak, who was invested as a member of AASL last year, said she is honored to receive the prize, especially as it offers an opportunity to communicate how her work relates to people’s everyday lives beyond the academy.

“As a philosopher, I’ve worked on how we should make decisions, how we should respond to uncertainty, and the role of commitments and faith, including religious faith, in a good human life,” she said. “I’ve defended some common-sense answers to these questions,” which show that “what ordinary people are doing has a lot of merit to it.” Her research “puts philosophical ‘meat’ on the way that many people actually live their lives,” she said.

Buchak regularly teaches a large lecture course, “Philosophy, Religion, and Existential Commitments” or, as she describes it, “how to live your practical life, given your commitments,” which attracts between 100 and 200 undergraduate students. She also teaches graduate seminars on ethics and decision theory.

Buchak is on sabbatical this semester and is using that time to expand her scholarly interests. Since her scholarship and teaching center on contemporary philosophy, she said she is immersing herself in the works of philosophers who came before her and who looked at the problems she grapples with — and that her students grapple with. “My work is about risk-taking, particularly when it comes to high stakes, one-off decisions, and it’s about commitment,” she said. For example, she is reading widely the works of mid-19th-century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, “who wrote on all those questions but in a really different style, different context and different way from the way I’m approaching them.”

Before joining Princeton, Buchak taught at the University of California-Berkeley. She earned her A.B. in philosophy and mathematics from Harvard University in 2003 and her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton in 2009. She is the author of “Risk and Rationality” (Oxford University Press, 2013). 

Winners of the Barry Prize receive a $50,000 cash award.

Five other Princeton faculty were invested as members of the academy in this year’s cohort:

• Thomas Kelly, the McCosh Professor of Philosophy
• John Londregan, professor of politics and international affairs
• Shivaji Sondhi, professor of physics, emeritus, and senior scholar
• David Spergel, the Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation, Emeritus; professor of astrophysical sciences, emeritus; and senior scholar in astrophysical sciences
• Pramod Viswanath, the Forrest G. Hamrick Professor in Engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering

Honored as a term member is Gregory Conti, associate professor of politics.