IPPA Council of Advisors

Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D. is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Director of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab (a.k.a. PEP Lab, www.PositiveEmotions.org) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University, with a minor in organizational behavior. Among the most highly cited and influential scholars in psychology, her research has been funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NCI, NIA, NCCAM, NIMH, NINR). Dr. Fredrickson has published >100 peer-reviewed articles and her general audience books, Positivity (2009, Crown, www.PositivityRatio.com) and Love 2.0 (2013, Penguin, www.PositivityResonance.com) have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Dr. Fredrickson’s scholarly contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the inaugural Templeton Prize in Positive Psychology from the American Psychological Association, the Career Trajectory Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the inaugural Christopher Peterson Gold Medal from the International Positive Psychology Association, and the Tang Prize for Achievements in Psychology, awarded to recognize exceptional career contributions to the well-being of humanity. Dr. Fredrickson also served as President of the International Positive Psychology Association from 2015-2017. Her work has influenced scholars and practitioners worldwide, within education, business, healthcare, the military, and beyond, and she is regularly invited to give keynotes nationally and internationally.

John F. Helliwell, of the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia, is Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and Co-Director of CIFAR’s program on ‘Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being’. Recent books include Well-Being for Public Policy (OUP, with Diener, Lucas and Schimmack, 2009), International Differences in Well-Being (OUP, edited with Diener and Kahneman, 2010), and five editions, 2012-2017, of the World Happiness Report (edited with Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs).

CEO & Founder, Soaringwords

Lisa has shared her wisdom with thousands of people throughout the world. Three experiences with death and illness in her family during a ten-month period motivated her to launch Soaringwords, a not-for-profit organization devoted to inspiring children, families, adults, seniors, and health care professionals to take active roles in self-healing to experience greater physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

Since 2001, Lisa has shared Soaringwords’ SOARING into Strength Positive Health Initiatives with more than 500,000 people. She is the author of SOARING into Strength: Love Transcends Pain, her debut memoir.

Lisa graduated with honors from The University of Pennsylvania; holds an MBA in Marketing from Columbia University Graduate School of Business; and a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology from The University of Pennsylvania. She has a certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a certificate from the American Institute for Mental Imagery.

Lisa is President of IPPA Health and Wellbeing Division; and the Board of the Coincidence Project. She’s been featured as an expert on ABC News, Fortune Small Business, USA Today, Delta Sky, and CEO to Watch in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. She won a Lives That Make a Difference Award from A&E Networks, a National Mothering That Works Award from Working Mother Media, inducted into YMCA Academy of Women Achievers Hall of Fame. She was on the board of Advertising Women of New York, the leading organization for executive women in communications.

Lisa has been a keynote speaker, moderator, and panelist at IPPA; European Positive Psychology Conference; Canadian Positive Psychology Conference; International Positive Education Network and led workshops as scholar-in-residence and at grand rounds at leading universities, medical schools, and nursing schools. She has led award-winning employee-engagement professional development workshops at Fortune 500 companies including Accenture, Cigna, Cisco, Deloitte, Lilly, Meta, Google, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, New York Life, SONY, Verizon, and Viacom. Lisa lives in New York City with her husband Jacob. Her pride and joy are her two grown sons Jonathan and Joshua, daughter-in-law Evelyn, and adorable grandbaby Charlotte. She gets her energy from swimming each day and connecting with people in fun and meaningful ways.

She has also been appointed as Chair of the Excellence in Leadership and Teaching Council for the Association of Independent Schools of NSW (AISNSW) in Australia.

Anne holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws (with Honours) degree, a Graduate Diploma in Education, and a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She was the recipient of a Churchill Fellowship during which she explored strategies to foster resilience in learning while based at Cambridge University in England. Anne is currently completing a PhD in education with a focus on wellbeing through the University of Melbourne.

In Australia, Anne has been recognised multiple times for her entrepreneurial impact in designing and implementing innovative positive education experiences, along with her exceptional educational leadership including The Educator Most Influential Educator Award (2023), The Educator Hot List (2022, 2023), and an Excellence Award in The Educator Australian Education 2022 Awards for Principal of the Year. Under Anne’s leadership, Ravenswood has been recognised as The Educator Innovative School of the Year five times (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023).

In 2019, Anne was the only female to be recognised internationally for her pioneering contribution and leadership in the field of Positive Education at the Positive Education Global Summit in Philadelphia hosted the Eisenhower Fellowships and Positive Psychology Centre, University of Pennsylvania.

Hans Henrik Knoop is Associate Professor with distinction, Director of the Positive Psychology Research Unit at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Extraordinary Professor, North West University, South Africa. His work is focused on flourishing in education, work, and society with a strong interdisciplinary approach. His research within positive psychology has involved thousands of educators and leaders and data on well-being from almost 300,000 Danish pupils. At Aarhus University he co-directs the Master Program of Positive Psychology with almost 600 students enrolled since 2011, and has hosted international conferences relating to education and positive psychology in Denmark in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2017. He was the President of the European Network for Positive Psychology from 2010 to 2014 and served on the IPPA Board of Directors from 2009 to 2016. He was the host of the 5th ECPP in Copenhagen in 2010, and coresponsible for 6th ECPP in Moscow in 2012, and the 7th ECPP in Amsterdam in 2014. From 2007 to 2011 he was Research Director at the Universe Research Lab in Denmark heading a team of researchers focusing on combined engagement, excellence, and ethics in education, involving approximately 10.000 pupils, 1.500 teachers and 150 school leaders. From 2006-2009 he was academically responsible for the TV-program Plan B and follow-ups – focused on bringing positive psychology to bear on pupils with reading difficulty. The first series of the program ran for six weeks and reached a prime-time viewer share of one third of all Danes watching television, received the second highest viewer rating in the history of the TV-channel TV2 (Denmark’s largest at the time), with the first episode nominated for a Golden Rose in Montreux. From 1996 to 2010 he was heading the Nordic Branch of The GoodWork Project led by peers Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and William Damon with comprehensive in-depth interviewing regarding excellence, engagement, and ethics, as understood by Nordic educators, leaders, journalists, and politicians including a European Commissioner, a Prime Minister and four other ministers. He has authored and co-authored more than 200 publications including 9 books. He has delivered more than thousand invited keynotes and lectures in Denmark and at conferences in Australia, Austria, Croatia, China, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, South Africa, Slovenia, Spain, The Philippines, the U.K. and the U.S, and is a frequent commentator in newspapers, radio and television on matters of learning, creativity, ethics, and positive psychology.

Richard Layard is an economist who thinks there is more to happiness than just the economy. In 2005 he wrote the best-selling book Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, translated into 20 languages, and in 2014 a follow-up on mental health called Thrive. He has had huge influence in making psychological therapy more widely available in Britain’s National Health Service. But most important of all he is co-founder of Action for Happiness, an international movement to promote a happier way of living.

Charles Martin-Krumm is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the IPPA (International Positive Psychology Association), Master of Conference at STAPS, Professor of Physical and Sports Education and Sports Trainer. He is a Full Professor at the Ecole de Psychologues Praticiens de Paris, Director of the VCR research team and IPPA Fellow. His research focus on the study of processes in which optimism can be implicated in the contexts of education and sport. His works concern the study of interactions between optimism and various affective, cognitive, or behavioral variables.

Helena Agueda Marujo is a Professor at Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Politicas (School of Social and Political Sciences), University of Lisbon, where she co-coordinates the Executive Master on Applied Positive Psychology and is a member of the research Center CAPP. She served in the scientific committees of the 1st and 2nd IPPA World Congresses, and the Positive Nations Conference (the 1st Portuguese Positive Psychology conference). She co-wrote seven books on Positive Psychology, namely one volume entitled “Positive Nations and Communities” (Springer). Helena is also an IPPA board member and President of the Portuguese Association of Positive Psychology (APPEIP).

Jeanne Nakamura is Associate Professor of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University. She received her B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She is cofounder with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi of the positive psychology concentration and the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont and is a past member of the board of the International Positive Psychology Association. She helped direct the Good Work Project, a series of studies of excellence and social responsibility in professional life. She investigates positive psychology in a lifespan developmental context, including vital engagement and creativity, mentoring and good work, and aging well. She is the coauthor of Good Mentoring and Creativity and Development and coeditor of Applied Positive Psychology. Her current writing and research address motivation and engagement in adulthood, the formative influences of mentoring and the formation of good mentors, and social innovation after sixty as a model for positive aging.

Nansook Park is a Professor in the Psychology Department and the Director of the Michigan Positive Psychology Center at the University of Michigan. Her main research reflects a psychology of human strengths. Her research topics include character strengths, moral excellence, positive relationships, life meaning, positive experiences, and strength-based practice, and their role in resiliency, well-being, health, family, work, and education. She has taken the lead in developing ways to assess character strengths among children and youth and in conducting cross-cultural investigations. She played a major role for US Army-Soldier resilience and psychological fitness project and Positive Education project in Australia. She is a fellow at the Association of Psychological Science and International Positive Psychology Association, and a former Templeton Research Fellow at the Positive Psychology Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) steering committee, a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Positive Psychology, and a former Associate Editor for the Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being.