Peter Salovey, a world-renowned scholar and leader in the study of emotional intelligence who recently completed a distinguished 11-year term as Yale’s 23rd president, was named the Sterling Professor of Psychology and professor of management, epidemiology & public health, and sociology, retroactive to July 1, 2024.
A Sterling Professorship is considered the highest academic and professional honor a Yale professor can receive.
Salovey, who was also appointed president emeritus, is a member of Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) in the Department of Psychology, and holds secondary appointments in the Yale School of Management, the Yale School of Public Health, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and the Department of Sociology.
He joined the Yale faculty in 1986 after earning his Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.S. degrees at Yale. He also has an A.B. in psychology and a co-terminal M.A. in sociology from Stanford University.
Among the most influential social psychologists working today, Salovey is a leading expert on the psychological consequences of moods and emotions. He is most well-known for his work on the concept of emotional intelligence, a framework he developed over three decades ago with John D. Mayer, which posits that people have measurable emotional skills that affect how they think and act. The ramifications of this framework are profound: it has shaped modern psychological research and clinical practice. In addition to his field-defining work on emotional intelligence, Salovey has transformed approaches to health communication through his research on how people process health-related information and how social psychological principles can be applied to foster healthy behavior. Across his five influential co-authored books, eight volumes of essays for which he served as an editor, and hundreds of papers published in top journals, Salovey has shown how emotions and moods shape people’s health and lives.
“Salovey’s publications place him not only among the most highly cited faculty in his department, but among the most highly cited faculty in his profession,” said FAS Dean Tamar Gendler. His work has received global acclaim, has been translated into more than 10 different languages, and is so broadly influential that it not only shapes academic methods and practices, but also broader public conversations about the mind and the self. It informs relationships between clinicians and patients, how teachers and students interact, how families converse, how leaders run organizations, and how people connect with one another in their daily lives.
When Salovey received an honorary degree from McGill University, Dilson Rassier, then dean of McGill’s Faculty of Education, described Salovey’s work as “a perfect example of linking academic research science and applied knowledge that can be translated to improving the quality of life.” He went on: “By illuminating the rich, complex way that our minds integrate the rational and the emotional, Dr. Salovey has helped to show us who we truly are; a critical step in understanding ourselves and, ultimately, understanding each other.”
Salovey has been honored by numerous institutions around the world for both his research contributions and for his service to higher education more broadly. He is a fellow of both the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he holds honorary degrees from Harvard, McGill University, the University of Pretoria, and other institutions around the world. He has been awarded honors and fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Psychological Association, the National Cancer Institute, and numerous other organizations, and his research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health, the William T. Grant Foundation, the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and many other funding agencies.
His career has been marked by distinguished service both within and beyond academia. He has served in editorial roles on major journals, on review panels for national and international funding agencies, and in numerous leadership roles in scholarly organizations. In addition, he has served on state and federal government councils and committees and on the advisory committees of several nongovernmental organizations. For this dedication to service, he has received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
A champion of the New Haven community, Salovey was awarded a 2024 Seton Elm and Ivy Award recognizing distinguished service to Yale and New Haven, the 2024 Promise Lifetime Achievers Award for his dedicated service to the New Haven Promise program, the 2024 William Lanson Community Leadership Award from the Greater New Haven & Quinnipiac Chambers of Commerce, and the New Haven United Way’s Toqueville/Pearce Award for Community Support. In addition, Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences recognized the magnitude of Salovey’s academic and civic contributions by awarding him the 2014 Edward A. Bouchet Medal, which honors leaders in academia and the community who are outstanding in their own fields of study and who serve as inspirational role models, a Wilbur Cross Medal, which honors outstanding achievement by graduate school alumni, in 2004, and the 2024 Edward A. Bouchet Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing a career of outstanding contributions to scholarship and community.
Salovey also chairs the board of governors of the New York Academy of Sciences and serves as a trustee or director of Stanford University, Legend Biotech, and the IBMA Foundation for Bluegrass Music.
On top of his extraordinary research contributions, Salovey is a legendary Yale teacher and leader. He has taught approximately 8,000 Yale undergraduates in “Introduction to Psychology.” His popular lecture course, “Psychology and the Law,” was, at the time, the largest class ever offered in the history of the university. His innovative and beloved co-taught seminar “Great Big Ideas” introduced students to the arguments and methods of 12 different disciplines over the course of 12 weeks and modeled engaged conversation and debate for a generation of Yalies.
Salovey is both a William Clyde DeVane Medalist and a recipient of the Lex Hixon ’63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences, two of the university’s most prestigious teaching prizes. He served as dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 2003 to 2004 and dean of Yale College from 2004 to 2008, as provost from 2008 to 2013, and as university president from 2013 to 2024. At his presidential inauguration, former FAS Dean of Humanities and presidential search committee member Amy Hungerford noted that Salovey “is recognized both on campus and throughout the world of higher education as a leader of exceptional skill.
“His ability to lead with others is matched by the importance of his own influential scholarship; his warmth as a person is matched by a sharp sense of Yale’s challenges,” she said. “He is a talented administrator and, at his core, a born teacher. At this crucial moment in Yale’s history, it became clear that our best candidate was right here — brilliant, beloved, and ready to lead the university into its next phase of life.”
During his presidency, he launched a bold science strategy for Yale, an expansive effort to build Yale’s capacity to lead in the data-driven social sciences, and invested in sustaining and expanding our strength in the humanities. Under his leadership, Yale opened two new residential colleges, and Salovey’s efforts ensured that a Yale education became accessible to the most promising students, regardless of socioeconomic background.
“Salovey’s scholarship has transformed his field and has transformed lives,” said Gendler, the FAS dean. “His teaching has inspired a generation of scholars, and his dedication to community is unsurpassed. He has devoted his career to this university and led with distinction. There are few whose achievements so merit the honor of a Sterling Professorship.”
