Peter Salovey

President, Yale University Scholars

Peter Salovey is the twenty-third president of Yale University and the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology. His presidential term began in July 2013. After receiving an A.B. (psychology) and A.M. (sociology) from Stanford University in 1980 with departmental honors and university distinction, he earned a Ph.D. at Yale in psychology. He is the only Yale president to have served as dean of the graduate school (2003–2004), dean of Yale College (2004–2008), and provost (2008–2013).

President Salovey has authored or edited over a dozen books translated into eleven languages and published hundreds of journal articles and essays in his field of social psychology. With John D. Mayer, he developed a broad framework called “emotional intelligence,” the theory that people 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 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 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the National Academy of Medicine in 2013.