Sonja Lyubomirsky December, 2008

Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. Originally from Russia, she received her AB, summa cum laude, from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology from Stanford University. Dr. Lyubomirsky currently teaches courses in social psychology and positive psychology and serves as the Department of Psychology's graduate advisor. Her teaching and mentoring of students have been recognized with the Faculty of the Year and Faculty Mentor of the Year Awards.

In 2002, Dr. Lyubomirsky was awarded a Templeton Positive Psychology Prize. Currently, she is an associate editor of the Journal of Positive Psychology, and (with Ken Sheldon) holds a 5-year million-dollar grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct research on the possibility of permanently increasing happiness. Her research has been written up in dozens of magazines and newspapers and she has appeared in multiple TV shows, radio shows, and feature documentaries in North America and Europe. She has lectured widely to a variety of audiences, including business executives, life coaches, retirees, students, and scholars. Her new book, The How of Happiness (Penguin Press), released on January 1, 2008, describes her findings on the science of happiness.

Ruut Veenhoven September, 2008

Ruut Veenhoven studied sociology. He is also accredited in social psychology and social-sexuology. Dr. Veenhoven is Emeritus-Professor of social conditions for human happiness at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Dr. Veenhoven's current research is on subjective quality of life. Major publications are Conditions of happiness (1984), Happiness in nations (1993) and Happy Life-expectancy (1997) and Quality-of-life in individualistic society (1999). Dr. Veenhoven has also published on love, marriage and parenthood.

Ed Diener July, 2008

Ed Diener is the Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois. He received his doctorate at the University of Washington in 1974, and has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois for the past 34 years. Dr. Diener was the president of both the International Society of Quality of Life Studies and the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. He was the editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the editor of Journal of Happiness Studies. Dr. Diener is the founding editor of Perspectives on Psychological Science. He has over 240 publications, with about 190 being in the area of the psychology of well-being.

 Dr. Diener is a fellow of five professional societies, and is listed as one of the most highly cited psychologists by the Institute of Scientific Information, with over 12,000 citations to his credit. He won the Distinguished Researcher Award from the International Society of Quality of Life Studies, the first Gallup Academic Leadership Award, and the Jack Block Award for Personality Psychology. Dr. Diener has won several teaching awards, including the Oakley-Kundee Award for Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Illinois.

Professor Diener's research focuses on the measurement of well-being; temperament and personality influences on well-being; theories of well-being; income and well-being; and cultural influences on well-being. He has edited three recent books on subjective well-being, and a 2005 book on multi-method measurement in psychology. Diener is authoring a book on policy uses of accounts of well-being with Richard Lucas, Ulrich Schimmack, and John Helliwell.  

His new book, Happiness:  Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth (Wiley: Blackwell), written with his son, Robert Biswas-Diener, was released in 2008, and just received the prestigious PROSE Book of the Year in Psychology Award from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the American Association of Publishers.

Martin E.P. Seligman May, 2008

Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., works on positive psychology, learned helplessness, depression, and on optimism and pessimism. He is currently Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is well known in academic and clinical circles and is a best-selling author.

His bibliography includes twenty books and 200 articles on motivation and personality. Among his better-known works are Learned Optimism (Knopf, 1991), What You Can Change & What You Can't (Knopf, 1993), The Optimistic Child (Houghton Mifflin, 1995), Helplessness (Freeman, 1975, 1993) and Abnormal Psychology (Norton, 1982, 1988, 1995), with David Rosenhan.

His most recent book is the best-selling, Authentic Happiness (Free Press, 2002). He is the recipient of two Distinguished Scientific Contribution awards from the American Psychological Association, the Laurel Award of the American Association for Applied Psychology and Prevention, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Research in Psychopathology. He holds an honorary Ph.D. from Uppsala, Sweden and Doctor of Humane Letters from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.

Dr. Seligman received both the American Psychological Society's William James Fellow Award (for contribution to basic science) and the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award (for the application of psychological knowledge).

James O. Pawelski, IPPA Executive Director, and Guest Presenter

James O. Pawelski, Ph.D. is Director of Education and Senior Scholar in the Positive Psychology Center and Adjunct Associate Professor of Religious Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.  Having earned a Ph.D. in philosophy, he is the author of The Dynamic Individualism of William James, in which he presents a major new interpretation and application of the work of this seminal philosopher and psychologist.  He has also authored articles on the history of philosophy and its application to human development.  His current research interests include the philosophical underpinnings of positive psychology, the philosophy and psychology of character development, and the development, application, and assessment of interventions in positive psychology.  He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Ernest L. Boyer Center, and of the Editorial Boards of William James Studies, International Coaching Psychology Review, and the Journal of Positive Psychology.

Dr. Pawelski is the founding director of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Program and is a Special Advisor to the Positive Psychology Steering Committee.  He is the founding Executive Director of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and a charter member of the Board of Directors of that organization.

In addition to his research and administrative work, he is also a teacher and practitioner of positive psychology who regularly makes presentations in Spanish, as well as English.  He is one of the principal faculty in the MAPP program (teaching courses on positive interventions), a key figure in the application of positive psychology and philosophy to life coaching, and a sought-after international lecturer and workshop leader.

David J. Pollay, IPPA Associate Executive Director, and Series Host

David J. Pollay is the author of Beware of Garbage Trucks - The Law of the Garbage Truck (www.bewareofgarbagetrucks.com). His book, The Law of the Garbage Truck, is due out this fall, and you can read his blog each week. People from more than 100 countries have already taken The No Garbage Trucks! Pledge. Mr. Pollay is a syndicated columnist with the North Star Writers Group, and creator and host of The Happiness Answer television program.

Mr. Pollay was an early leader at Yahoo!, holding pioneering roles as the first Senior Director of Customer Care, and the first Director of Learning and Development. Prior to Yahoo!, he held leadership positions at MasterCard, Global Payments, and AIESEC. And in 2006 Mr. Pollay was inducted into the AIESEC Alumni International Hall of Fame.

Mr Pollay is President of The Momentum Project, LLC. The Momentum Project focuses on the application of the Science of Positive Psychology to business. His company produces increased employee productivity and retention for its clients through its seminar programs.

Mr. Pollay is also a founding Associate Executive Director of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA). He holds a Master's Degree of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from the University of Pennsylvania, and an Economics Degree from Yale University. Mr. Pollay is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and is the founding president of the first Master's Degree Alumni Association in Positive Psychology.

Deborah S. Swick, IPPA Associate Executive Director

Deborah S. Swick, MBA, is Associate Director of Education in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.  With experience in both the corporate world and in academia, she has put her MBA (Vanderbilt University) to good use in the development of both the structure and the content of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program at Penn.  Ms. Swick is a key part of the leadership team responsible for the delivery and ongoing development of the MAPP program and is the Assistant Instructor for the courses Foundations of Positive Interventions and Positive Psychology and Organizations.

Ms. Swick is also an Associate Executive Director of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA). She has particular interests in the creation and development of positive communities and is applying these interests in her work with the growing community of MAPP alumni and students, as well as with the global IPPA community. In addition to her administrative and academic work, she is a speaker to diverse audiences, a business consultant, and a life coach.