Peter Salovey

Professor Peter Salovey is the 23rd president of Yale University, and the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology. His presidential term began in July 2013.

Prior to becoming president, Professor Salovey served as the provost of Yale University from 2008 to 2013. As provost, Professor 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.

Professor Salovey joined the Yale faculty in 1986 after receiving an A.B. and A.M. from Stanford University in 1980, with departmental honours and university distinction, and a Ph.D. from Yale. He holds secondary faculty appointments in the Schools of Management and Public Health and the Institution for Social and Policy Studies. He was appointed chair of the Department of Psychology in 2000, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2003, and dean of Yale College in 2004.

Professor Salovey has authored or edited thirteen books translated into eleven languages and published more than 350 journal articles and essays, focused primarily on human emotion and health behaviour. 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, Professor 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. In 2009 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Pretoria in South Africa.