IPPA Council of Advisors

Nansook Park is a Professor in the Psychology Department and the Director of the Michigan Positive Psychology Center at the University of Michigan. Her main research reflects a psychology of human strengths. Her research topics include character strengths, moral excellence, positive relationships, life meaning, positive experiences, and strength-based practice, and their role in resiliency, well-being, health, family, work, and education. She has taken the lead in developing ways to assess character strengths among children and youth and in conducting cross-cultural investigations. She played a major role for US Army-Soldier resilience and psychological fitness project and Positive Education project in Australia. She is a fellow at the Association of Psychological Science and International Positive Psychology Association, and a former Templeton Research Fellow at the Positive Psychology Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) steering committee, a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Positive Psychology, and a former Associate Editor for the Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being.

Professor Kaiping Peng is currently the dean of the school of social sciences, chair of the psychology department at Tsinghua University. He was a tenured faculty member at the Department of Psychology of the University of California at Berkeley before returning to China in 2009. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1997. Before coming to the US in 1989, he had been a faculty member at the Psychology Department of Peking University of China for five years. He had been the head of the social/personality psychology area in Berkeley, member of the American Psychological Association Leadership Council, executive committee of the Institute of East-Asian Studies, steering committee for the Diversity Research at UC Berkeley, the co-president of the Fifth International Conference of Chinese Psychologists Worldwide, the founding President of Chinese Positive Psychology Association and the board member of the International Positive Psychology Association, and numerous other national and international professional academic services. Since 2008, he has been the founding chair of the Psychology Department of Tsinghua University, also directs the Happiness Technology Lab and the Tsinghua Berkeley Center for Psychological Studies。 He has published eight books and more than 300 articles and essays on cultural and social psychology, as well as methodological issues of psychology. According to many surveys, he had been the world most cited social psychologist at the associate professor level until 2007, and one of the most cited Chinese psychologists in the world. His new book on positive psychology has been on the top ten best seller list on Amazon China.

Generally, my research examines the role that positive emotions and other positive factors play in influencing stress and health outcomes. I am especially interested in exactly how these factors “get under the skin” to influence our well-being and protect us against the harmful effects of stress. Pathways that I have examined include physiological processes such as stress hormone reactivity, cardiovascular response, immune system change, as well as health behaviors like sleeping, exercise, and other leisure activities. I also do research on the role of these positive psychosocial factors in buffering the detrimental effects of stress. For example, I am interested in whether happiness is associated with an improved ability to handle stress, both from a psychological and a physiological standpoint. I am also very interested in using relationship and emotion markers outside of self-report as predictors of health. For example, computerized word encoding of writing, or positive facial emotion expression (e.g., smiling) as alternative, unobtrusive methods of understanding individual differences.

Reb Rebele is a Senior Research Fellow for the Wharton People Analytics initiative at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. candidate in the Personality Processes Lab in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Reb earned his Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) degree at the University of Pennsylvania and taught in that program for nearly 10 years. His research aims to understand consistency and flexibility in human motivation and behavior – particularly in the context of work – and has been conducted with a number of national and international organizations. Reb’s research and writing has appeared in academic journals (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science), books (Flourishing in Work, Life, and Careers), and industry publications (Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review). After completing MAPP, he worked on a diverse portfolio of positive psychology projects, including serving as part of a resilience training team working with the U.S. Army and groups of educators, speaking and guest-lecturing on applied psychology topics to organizations and conferences, and working as a strategic advisor to the International Positive Psychology Association.

Professor Willibald Ruch is a founding member of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and currently chair of the section of personality and assessment at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. He received his PhD from the University of Graz, Austria in 1980 and later worked at different universities in Germany, the UK and Switzerland. He taught various courses on personality and assessment at different universities (e.g. Düsseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt, Belfast, Zürich) and he has authored about than 300 journal articles and book chapters and co-edited and co-written five books. Willibald is co-editing or on the editorial board of several journals (including Journal of Individual Differences, Journal of Research in Personality, Journal of Positive Psychology), and co-editor of two book series. Currently he is working on positive psychology traits (e.g., character strengths and virtues; orientations to happiness, cheerfulness, humor) in adults and children/adolescents and their role in contributing to the good life. He is the founder and current president the Swiss Positive Psychology Association (www.swippa.ch), IPPA Fellow and senior scientist at the VIA Institute of character.

Marei Salama-Younes is an Associate Professor of Measurement and Sport Psychology at Helwan University, Cairo, EGYPT, and an Associate Researcher of Psychology in CRPCC and ESPE-CREAD de Bretagne, Rennes, FRANCE. He has obtained 2 Ph.D.(s) from Rennes 2 University, France. He has published in explanatory style, flourishing, mental health, subjective well-being, passion, and performance. He is considered as one of elites in positive psychology and its assessment for physical active people in different Arab countries. He is a member in the board of directors of the IPPA.

Kamlesh Singh (Ph. D Psychology), joined the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in 2004 and has about 20-year experience in research and teaching. Main areas of her research interest are positive psychology, applied positive psychology, psychometrics, community psychology, and rural women and adolescents. Kamlesh Singh has to her credit 65 published papers in the peer reviewed national and international journals and 14 book chapters. She has also presented about 60 papers at national and international conferences. She has been teaching courses like positive psychology and psychological testing at IIT Delhi, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore and IIM Ranchi. With her ongoing teaching and various research projects in positive psychology, Kamlesh Singh is also on board of directors of the International Association of Positive Psychology (IPPA) and secretary and founder member of National Positive Psychology Association (NPPA). She has also recently joined as Associate Editor, Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology.

I work as an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. My scientific interests and research focus mainly on mental health and well-being, hope, and mindfulness.

I established the Czech Positive Psychology Centre (www.pozitivni-psychologie.cz) in 2008, I serve as a country representative for the Czech Republic in the European Network for Positive Psychology, and I have an honor and pleasure to be a member of the Board of Advisors of the International Positive Psychology Association.

I am author of the first comprehensive monograph on positive psychology in Czech („Pruvodce pozitivni psychologii“ – “Positive Psychology Guidebook”, publ. in Prague in 2012), a book “Hope and Well-being: Psychosocial Correlates and Benefits” (publ. at University of Malta in 2017), and number of scientific and popular publications in the fields of positive psychology, health psychology and personal development.

I love nature, travelling and exploring foreign countries, getting to know different peoples and cultures. I believe in goodness in people all around the world.

Dr. Philip Streit is a trained clinical and health psychologist, NLP Master Practitioner, Psychotherapist, Supervisor, and Social and Life Coach. He is Head of the Institute and the Academy for Child, Youth and Family (IKJF) e.U. in Graz, Austria, Director of the Institute for Positive Psychology and Mental Coaching, Coordinator for Seligman Europe, and a current member of the IPPA Board of Directors. Dr. Streit has been working actively in the field of positive psychology since 2009, specializing in psychological interventions for counseling, coaching and therapy.

As part of the positive psychological platform, Seligman Europe, Dr. Streit organized symposia, lectures, and seminars on positive psychology.  In 2011, he developed training for Applied Positive Psychology in German-speaking countries in collaboration with Prof. Martin Seligman and the University of Pennsylvania (USA)

That same year he founded the Institute for Positive Psychology and Mental Coaching in Graz, where he regularly conducts workshops and holds regular seminars entitled:  “Positive Psychology – practice-oriented concepts and interventions for school psychologists and school psychologists “and “Applied Positive Psychology – Positive Leadership.”

His current research includes a project of the Institute for Positive Psychology and Mental Coaching in cooperation with the Department of geriatric psychiatry at the Landesnervenklinik Sigmund Freud in Graz about wellbeing “A positive psychological intervention program for depressed people over 65 years.” He has also recently embarked on a project to develop the German version of Positive Psychotherapy Inventory (Rashid, 2013) and the PERMA profiler (Kern, 2012).

Margarita Tarragona is a psychologist who specializes in coaching and psychotherapy. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago. She has been the director of the Instituto de Ciencias de la Felicidad Tecmilenio in Mexico, created the Diploma in Positive Psychology at the Universidad Iberoamericana and is on the faculty of the Certificate in Positive Psychology (CIPP) program for Latin America. She co-founded and teaches in Grupo Campos Elíseos, a training institute for psychotherapists.

In her work as a clinician and coach, Margarita incorporates scientific findings on human flourishing from positive psychology, with collaborative and narrative ways of working with clients to generate dialogue, expand their life stories and discover new possibilities. Margarita is on the advisory board of directors of IPPA, is the president of the Mexican Positive Psychology Society (SMPP) and is a global representative of IPEN, the International Positive Education Network. She publishes regularly, both in academic journals and books, and in popular media.

Dr George E. Vaillant is a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital.  Dr. Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of schizophrenia, heroin addiction, alcoholism, and personality disorder.  He spent 35 years as Director of the Study of Adult Development at the Harvard University Health Service.  The study has prospectively charted the lives of 824 men and women for almost 70 years.  His published works include Adaptation to Life, 1977, The Wisdom of The Ego, 1993, The Natural History of Alcoholism-Revisited, 1995, and Aging Well, 2002, Spiritual Evolution, 2008 and Triumphs of Experience, 2012

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Vaillant did his residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and completed his psychoanalytic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He has been a Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, is a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and a founding member of Positive Psychology.  A major focus of his work in the past has been individual adult development; more recently he has been interested in positive emotions and their relationship to community development. He is a past Class A trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous and is currently on the Steering Committee of Positive Psychology. Dr. Vaillant has received the Foundations Fund Prize for Research in Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association, the Strecker Award from The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, and the Jellinek Award for research in alcoholism.  Most recently he received The Distinguished Service Award from the American Psychiatric Association.

Professor Robert J. Vallerand is Full Professor of Psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He has published 8 books and well over 350 scientific articles and book chapters. His research focuses on motivational processes and especially passion for activities. He has served as President of the Canadian Psychological Association and the International Positive Psychology Association. He served as President of the 2^nd World Congress on Positive Psychology (Philadelphia, 2011). He is a Fellow of more than 15 associations, including the American Psychological Association (and Fellow of 5 APA Divisions), the Association for Psychological Science, and many others. He has received numerous awards, including the Christopher Peterson Gold Medal Award from the International Positive Psychology Association, the William James Award from the American Psychological Association for his 2015 book, The Psychology of Passion with Oxford University Press, and the Sport Science Award from the International Olympic Committee.