RESEARCH TEAM
James O. Pawelski, Principle Investigator and Project Director, University of Pennsylvania
James O. Pawelski, Ph.D., is professor of practice and director of education in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also serves as adjunct professor of Religious Studies. Having won a Fulbright Scholarship and earned a doctorate in philosophy, he is the founding director of the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project, which has been designated a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab. He is the author of The Dynamic Individualism of William James, editor of the philosophy section of the Oxford Handbook of Happiness, co-editor of The Eudaimonic Turn: Well-Being in Literary Studies, and co-editor of On Human Flourishing: A Poetry Anthology. Additionally, he is the series editor of the Oxford University Press book series on the Humanities and Human Flourishing and co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the Positive Humanities. Dr. Pawelski is an award-winning teacher, the founding director of Penn’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program, a past president of the William James Society, the founding executive director of the International Positive Psychology Association, and a member of the executive committee of the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies. An international keynote speaker who has given talks in more than 20 countries on six continents, he is the recipient of a Practice Excellence Award from the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and the Humanitarian Innovation Award for the Humanities, Arts, and Culture from the Humanities Innovation Forum at the United Nations. He is co-author (with his wife Suzann Pileggi Pawelski) of Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts, is frequently featured in major U.S. and international media, including the New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Time, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chronicle of Higher Education, People’s Daily (China), El Norte (Mexico), and Perfil (Argentina), and has appeared on The Today Show, Univision, Globo, TVOntario, and Radio Times.
Sarah Sidoti, Assistant Director, University of Pennsylvania
Sarah Sidoti is the Assistant Director of the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project. Sarah oversees the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project’s publishing program, events, communication, and general administration as well as contributes to its strategic vision and fundraising efforts. She joined the project in 2017 with a background extending across the arts and humanities and with several years of experience in academic publishing (the most recent five as a Managing Editor for Arts and Humanities Journals at Routledge, Taylor & Francis). Her interest in this project is rooted in belief that the arts and humanities are essential for a thoughtful, engaged, civically-minded, and thriving society. She received her M.S.Ed. in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.A. in English Literature from Muhlenberg College. Outside of her work at Penn, she enjoys knitting, sewing, and other textile work, reading, and weekend hikes in the Wissahickon.
Katherine Cotter, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
Katherine Cotter, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research has focused on people's interactions with music and visual art, with an emphasis on assessing interactions in people's typical, everyday environments. In her work, Katherine often uses daily life methods, which assess people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as they occur in their everyday environments. Katherine earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is currently a member of the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project at the Positive Psychology Center, which seeks to understand how the arts and humanities can foster and contribute to well-being.
Damien Crone, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
Damien Crone, Ph.D., is a data science postdoctoral research fellow at the Positive Psychology Center as part of the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project. At the PPC, Damien's work focuses on the application of natural language processing to understand the causes, correlates and/or consequences of engaging in the arts and humanities. Before arriving at Penn, Damien completed his PhD at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at The University of Melbourne, writing a dissertation on empirical methods for the study of morality (moral values, judgments, etc.).
TECHNICAL WORKING GROUP
Alice Anderson, Minneapolis Institute of Art
Jay Greene, University of Arkansas
John Medaglia, Drexel University
Paul Silvia, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Jeff Smith, University of Otago
Louis Tay, Purdue University
Ellen Winner, Boston College