Ran received his PhD in 1999 from Tel Aviv University. He is currently a member of the Psychology Department The Hebrew University and the Center for the Study of Rationality, and the editor of Oxford University Press’s Social Cognition and Social Neuroscience book series.

He is interested in understanding the capabilities of unconscious processes, and in using this knowledge, gain insights into the functions of consciousness. Relatively longstanding projects in the lab include the investigation of (non-conscious) working memory and executive functions, (non-conscious) goal pursuit and motivation, (non-conscious) goal conflict and self control, and (non-conscious) nationalism. Newer projects include (non-conscious) arithmetic and reading, the study of emotional and motivational factors that determine when things pop into consciousness, and application of various of the above-mentioned projects to the area of judgment and decision making. In recent years I have also examined various aspects of emotional processes, ranging from emotion perception, to emotion regulation and phenomenology. The lab mainly uses behavioral measures, but from time to time we resort to physiological data, patient data, and even colorful (and less colorful) pictures of the brain. In one fMRI study, run by a former graduate student in the lab, we even found significant activations outside the skull.