Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky
Professor of Psychology, University of California, Riverside
Sonja Lyubomirsky is Professor and Vice Chair of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. Originally from Russia, she received her A.B., summa cum laude, from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology from Stanford University. Lyubomirsky currently teaches courses in social psychology and well-being science. Her teaching and mentoring of students have been recognized with two Faculty of the Year awards and a Faculty Mentor of the Year award. Lyubomirsky’s research – on how and why happiness can shift over time — has been honored with Fellow status from three different scientific societies, the Diener Award for Outstanding Midcareer Contributions in Personality Psychology, the UC Riverside Distinguished Research Lecturer Award, a Templeton Positive Psychology Prize, and a variety of grants, including from the John Templeton Foundation, Character Lab, and NIH. Lyubomirsky’s best-selling 2008 book, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want (Penguin Press) and her second book, The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, But Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, But Does, have been published in 39 countries. Her work has been written up in hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles, and she has appeared in multiple TV shows, radio shows, and feature documentaries in North America, South America, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. She lives in Santa Monica, California, with her family.
Sir Anthony Seldon
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham
Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Buckingham since 2015, is one of Britain’s leading contemporary historians, educationalists, commentators and political authors. He was a transformative head for 20 years, first of Brighton College and then Wellington College. He is author or editor of over 40 books on contemporary history, including the inside books on the last four Prime Ministers, was the co-founder and first director of the Institute for Contemporary British History, is co-founder of Action for Happiness, honorary historical adviser to 10 Downing Street, UK Special Representative for Saudi Education, a member of the Government’s First World War Culture Committee, was chair of the Comment Awards, is a director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the President of IPEN, (International Positive Education Network), Chair of the National Archives Trust, is patron or on the board of several charities, founder of the Via Sacra Western Front Walk, and was executive producer of the film Journey’s End. He appeared on the Desert Island Discs in 2016. For the last fifteen years he has given all his money from writing and lecturing to charity. He has three children; his wife of 34 years, Joanna, died of cancer in December 2016.
Professor Lea Waters
Professor of Psychology, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne
Lea Waters PhD is a professor, published author, psychologist, internationally-celebrated speaker and one of the world’s leading experts on Positive Education, Positive Organizations and Strength-Based Parenting and Teaching
Professor Waters is the Founding Director and Inaugural Gerry Higgins Chair in Positive Psychology at the Centre for Positive Psychology, University of Melbourne where she has held an academic position for 23 years. Lea holds affiliate positions at Cambridge University and the University of Michigan and serves on the Scientific Board at Berkeley University’s Greater Good Science Centre. Lea is the 2017-2019 President of the International Positive Psychology Association, serves on the Council of Happiness and Education for the World Happiness Council, is the Patron of Flourishing Education Japan and Ambassador for Positive Education Schools Association.
As a researcher, she has published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters.
Her book, The Strength Switch: How The New Science of Strength-Based Parenting Can Help Your Child and Your Teen to Flourish, was the top release on Amazon in the parenting category, was listed in Top reads for 2017 by Berkeley University’s Greater Good Centre and was listed in the Top Five Books on Happiness for Children in the UK’s Top Five site. It has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Hungarian, Arabic, Russian, French and Spanish.
In 2015, Professor Waters was listed as one of Australia’s Top 100 Women of Influence by the Financial Review and Westpac Bank. She has been listed in the Marques ‘Who’s Who in the World’ since 2009 and was included in the 2017 edition of Who's Who of Australian Women.
Lea is committed to spreading the science of positive psychology as widely as possible and has been featured on The Morning Dose (Dallas TV), Revolution School (ABC, Australia), Matter of Fact (ABC, Australia), Destination Happiness (Channel Nine, Australia), Today Extra (Channel Nine, Australia), National Nightly News (Channel Ten), The Project (TV3, New Zealand), The Café (NZTV, New Zealand), Breakfast (NZTV, New Zealand). Lea is also frequently featured in print media, including Wall Street Journal, TIME.com Magazine, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Globe (Toronto), The Guardian (UK), and The Age (Australia). Lea’s TEDx talk, Warning: Being positive is not for the faint hearted! explores how small positive steps can make a big impact on the wellbeing of ourselves and others, has been viewed more than 118,000 times.
Lea is the Founder of Visible Wellbeing, an initiative that brings the science of wellbeing and learning to schools. Visible Wellbeing is being used in schools across Australia, Asia, Canada, New Zealand and United Arab Emirates. Her newest program, The Strengths Switch offers parents and educators free resources, on-line courses and facilitated courses to better build the strengths of families across the globe.
Professor Lindsay Oades
Professor of Psychology, Director of the Centre for Positive Psychology, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne
Professor Lindsay G Oades (MBA with Distinction, PhD) is Director of the Centre for Positive Psychology, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. Lindsay’s formal training is in psychology and business. Lindsay’s PhD was in Clinical Psychology and he was previously a Member of the Australian Psychological Society and College of Clinical Psychologists and College of Health Psychologists. In March 2015, after a 15 year career with the University of Wollongong, Lindsay joined the Centre for Positive Psychology at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. In 2013 he received an Australian Government citation for outstanding contribution to student learning. Lindsay has taught applied psychology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels for 20 years in psychology, nursing, business and education in Australia, Hong Kong and Japan. He speaks at conferences around the world, and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and scholarly book chapters cited over 2300 times. His research interests concern the applications of wellbeing in workplaces, health and education systems. In particular, he has developed intervention and organisational development programs to assist mental health services to become more recovery oriented, drawing on the empirical bases of positive psychology and wellbeing science. This work is referred to as the Collaborative Recovery Model and Stages of Psychological Recovery. His current developing research program focusses on (1) positive systems science (2) wellbeing literacy and (3) wellbeing investing. Lindsay’s recent consultancies include the Australian Mental Health Commission, NSW Mental Health, Department of Education and Community (consulting on the development of the NSW Wellbeing Framework for Schools) and Maudsley International (international global mental health consultancy). In 2015 he received a Vice-Chancellors Award for excellence in research commercialisation. He is a co-editor for the multidisciplinary International Journal of Wellbeing; managing Director of Life Sculpture Pty Ltd, non-executive Director of the Reach Foundation, Action for Happiness Australia and was on the scientific advisory panel for the Institute of Coaching, at Harvard University’s McLean Hospital for four years. Lindsay is on the leadership team of the Wellbeing Collaborative for the Mental Health Commission of NSW. In 2016 Lindsay was invited to join the Australian Psychological Society Presidential Initiative to advise on community wellbeing.
Pauline Carrigan
Co-Founder, Where There's a Will
Anthony Raitman
Department of Education and Training, Victoria
In his current role, Anthony is responsible for improving the health wellbeing and educational outcomes of children and young people in the Outer East area of Melbourne. His role has a strong emphasis on developing and maintaining meaningful relationships and partnerships between children, young people and their families and early childhood services, schools and local communities. Anthony is also the Chair of the Outer East Children and Youth Area Partnership and past Chair of the Yarra Ranges Tech School.
Anthony is responsible for the implementation of the Plus 10 schools initiative which seeks to implement positive education in 27 schools across the City of Maroondah in partnership with the Maroondah Principal Network, Maroondah City Council, Geelong Grammar and University of Melbourne.
Georgie Harman
CEO, BeyondBlue