Shawn Achor
April 13, 2011
11:00 a.m. Capitol Theatre
Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard. His research and lectures on happiness and human potential have received attention in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal as well as on NPR and CNN Radio. When not at Harvard, Achor travels around the world giving talks on positive psychology to Fortune 500 corporations, financial institutions, schools and nonprofit organizations. He is the CEO of Aspirant, a global positive psychology consulting firm that researches positive outliers-people who are well above average-to help consult organizations on where human potential, success and happiness intersect. Shawn's new book on the science of success will be released in late 2010.
Achor graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and earned a Master's degree from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. In 2006, Achor served as head teaching fellow with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar of "Positive Psychology," a class that enrolled one out of every seven Harvard undergraduates. For seven years, Achor served as an officer of Harvard, living in Harvard Yard and counseling students through the stresses of their first year. He now lives in Harvard's Kirkland House as the resident psychology tutor. Achor continues to conduct original psychology research on human potential, happiness and organizational achievement.
Achor has spoken to diverse audiences-Wall Street analysts, Harvard law students, business leaders in London and Rome, elite high school students, wealth managers, doctors, and parents-in order to close the gap between the advances made in positive psychology research and our everyday lives. Based on his research and 12 years of experience at Harvard, Achor clearly and humorously describes to organizations how to increase happiness and meaning, raise success rates and profitability, and create positive transformations that ripple into more successful cultures.