Much of the work that has been described in this book stems from the bright ideas and hard work of our many collaborators. We’ve made it a point to note each of them by name in the text where we’ve discussed the experiments of which they were a part, because it is a fact certain that each of their contributions was central to the success of the work. Still, we’d like to single out a few individuals for extra note. Over the past decade, Dave’s lab at Northeastern has become a national focal point for the study of how emotions guide social behavior. The result of this fact (and in many ways the reason for it in the first place) is that we’ve had the extraordinary good fortune to be able to work day in and day out with people who are not only incredibly smart and creative but also some of the warmest and most fun people on the planet. For this we count ourselves blessed. So we think it’s only fair to acknowledge present and former members of the lab (in alphabetical order).
MONICA BARTLETT, who took the lead on much of the work on gratitude, is now an assistant professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Besides being a top-notch scholar on the benefits of positive emotions, Monica is renowned at Gonzaga for her teaching. So if you’re ever passing through Spokane, stop in to catch one of her lectures.
JOLIE BAUMANN contributed to some of the work on gratitude we discussed. She is currently a senior graduate student in Dave’s lab working in two areas: the effects of emotion on perception and the dynamics of trust. As part of her work on trust, Jolie has teamed with Dave and the MIT Personal Robots Group to give voice to the robot Nexi, which, in collaboration with its creator, Cynthia Breazeal, they are using to study how people decide if they can trust a stranger.
JULIA BRAVERMAN was Dave’s first grad student, who, like all first grad students, helped build the embryonic lab from scratch. After leaving Northeastern with a Ph.D. in psychology, she went on to Harvard to get a master’s degree in biomedical informatics. Today she’s an instructor at Harvard Medical School doing great work on health communication strategies designed to increase public health.
PAUL CONDON is a new arrival in Dave’s lab. Even though Paul hasn’t yet had an opportunity to contribute to any of the work we described, as he’s been here only a few months, he has had to put up with Dave saying, “I can’t meet now, I’m writing a book.” For that alone, he deserves an acknowledgment, but, industrious and creative as he is, he’s already conducting cutting-edge experiments on the causes and consequences of human compassion.
LEAH DICKENS contributed to some of the work on gratitude we discussed. Leah, who will be joining the lab in 2011 as a new grad student, was the lab manager and Dave’s research assistant in 2009–10. As such, she also spent many hours on the Internet and in the library hunting down facts and articles for this book. Her intelligence and sheer dedication were amazing assets to this project.
LISA WILLIAMS, who was the guiding force behind much of the work on pride, is now a lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Lisa, who is originally from Hawaii, put in many long hours in the cold Boston winters, so we’re happy she’s living in Sydney with a view of Coogee Beach from her apartment. Lisa continues to do some of the most groundbreaking work around on the social aspects of pride (and manages to show up in Boston during the winter now and again with a tan).