Peter Salovey

Before concluding his service in June 2024, Peter Salovey was the twenty-third president of Yale University, appointed in July 2013. He is a Sterling Professor of Psychology, holding secondary faculty appointments in the School of Management, School of Public Health, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and Department of Sociology.

 

During his presidential tenure, President Emeritus Salovey led the development of new programs and facilities across the schools and departments of Yale, consistent with the vision and strategy he articulated earlier in his presidency. Advancements included restructuring and expanding the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, launching the Jackson School of Global Affairs, transitioning the Yale School of Public Health into a self-supporting independent school from the Yale School of Medicine, and opening two new residential colleges, increasing Yale College enrollment by 15 percent. He also advanced innovative teaching on campus; amplified Yale’s partnerships in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world; and enhanced multidisciplinary collaboration and entrepreneurial opportunity for faculty and students. President Emeritus Salovey was—and remains—committed to improving access to a Yale education for students worldwide regardless of their financial background.

 

 

After receiving an A.B. (psychology) and A.M. (sociology) from Stanford University in 1980 with departmental honors and university distinction, President Emeritus Salovey earned three degrees at Yale in psychology: M.S. (1983), M.Phil. (1984), and Ph.D. (1986). Since joining the Yale faculty in 1986, he has studied the connections among emotion, health communication, and health behavior, with a special focus on emotional intelligence. He played key roles in multiple Yale programs including the Health, Emotion, and Behavior Laboratory, which President Emeritus Salovey founded; the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS; and the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program.

 

President Emeritus Salovey has authored or edited over a dozen books translated into eleven languages and published hundreds of journal articles and essays. 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, President Emeritus 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), Harvard University (2015), McGill University (2018), University of Haifa (2018), and Vytautas Magnus University (2019). In 2013, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.

 

Peter Salovey received an AB in Psychology from Stanford University in 1980. He went on to receive an AM in Sociology from Stanford University in 1980, an MS in Psychology from Yale University in 1984, and a PhD in Psychology from Yale University in 1986. He was an intern in Clinical Health Psychology at the West Haven VA Medical Center in 1986.