Yale University

Peter Salovey, Ph.D.

Roles:
  • President, Yale University
  • Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology, Yale Department of Psychology
  • Professor, Yale School of Public Health
  • Professor, Yale School of Management
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Biography:

Peter Salovey is the 23rd president of Yale University and the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology. His presidential term began in July 2013. After receiving an A.B. (psychology) and A.M. (sociology) from Stanford University in 1980 with departmental honors and university distinction, Salovey earned three degrees at Yale in psychology: an M.S. (1983), M.Phil. (1984), and Ph.D. (1986). Since joining the Yale faculty in 1986, he has studied the connection between human emotion and health behavior, and played key roles in multiple Yale programs.

Prior to becoming president, Salovey served as the provost of Yale University from 2008 to 2013. As provost, Salovey facilitated strategic planning and initiatives, such as enhancing career development and mentoring opportunities for all Yale faculty members, promoting faculty diversity, creating the Office of Academic Integrity, establishing the University-wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, developing the West Campus, and overseeing the university’s budget during the global financial crisis.

He is the only Yale president to have served as dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2003–2004), dean of Yale College (2004–2008), and provost. Salovey has authored or edited over a dozen books translated into eleven languages and published hundreds of journal articles and essays, focused primarily on human emotion and health behavior. With John D. Mayer, he developed a broad framework called "Emotional Intelligence," the theory that just as people have a wide range of intellectual abilities, they also have a wide range of measurable emotional skills that profoundly affect their thinking and action.

In addition to teaching and mentoring scores of graduate students, Salovey has won both the William Clyde DeVane Medal for Distinguished Scholarship and Teaching in Yale College and the Lex Hixon '63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Pretoria (2009), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2014), National Tsing Hua University (2014), and Harvard University (2015). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the National Academy of Medicine in 2013.