Dr. Wan's research focuses on how age and income shape decision-making across the adult lifespan, particularly delay and probability discounting — how people value rewards that are delayed, uncertain, or both.  He is especially interested in complex, multi-attribute choices in which outcomes are simultaneously delayed and probabilistic, and in how personality, cognitive ability, and financial resources such as financial security and financial literacy shape the way older and younger adults weigh the attributes of a decision.  His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include behavioral economics and judgment and decision-making.

He has published in leading academic journals including Psychology and Aging, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Frontiers in Psychology, and the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.  He has been a member of the Association for Psychological Science, the Association for Behavior Analysis International, and the Society for the Quantitative Analyses of Behavior.

Wan has a B.A. in Economics and Psychology from Reed College, Portland, Oregon, and a Ph.D. in Psychological and Brain Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri.