Center Seminar Series

The Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness invites both Harvard and non-Harvard faculty and researchers to discuss topics related to the mission of the Center.

2020-2021

The theme of the 2020-2021 seminar series is health equity & positive well-being. For upcoming seminars, see our Upcoming Events page.

• September 23, 2020 – Dr. Mika Kivimäki, Professor of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College London 
  • “Social Inequalities in Physical and Psychological Health: An Update on Current Knowledge”
• October 28, 2020 – Dr. Vikram Patel, Pershing Square Professor of Global Health, Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Adjunct professor & Joint Director, Centre for Chronic Conditions & Injuries, Public Health Foundation of India 
  • “Transforming Mental Health in the Covid Era”
• December 2, 2020 – Dr. Cheryl Giscombé, LeVine Family Distinguished Associate Professor of Quality of Life, Health Promotion and Wellness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing
  • “HARMONY: The Development of a Culturally-Relevant, Randomized Controlled Mindfulness-Based Stress Management Intervention to Reduce Cardiometabolic Risk in African American Women” No recording available
• January 27, 2021 – Dr. Ashley Whillans, Assistant Professor in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School
  • “Alleviating Time Poverty: Evidence from a Pre-Registered Longitudinal Experiment”
• February 24, 2021 – George Ward, M.Sc., Behavioral Scientist, MIT Sloan School of Management
  • “Happiness at Work”
• March 24, 2021 – Dr. Michèle Lamont, Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies and the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies at Harvard University 
  • “Social Resilience, Hope, and Recognition in the New Gilded Age”
• April 28, 2021 – Dr. Jennifer Prah Ruger, Amartya Sen Professor of Health Equity, Economics, and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania
  • “Applying the Health Capability Profile”
• May 19, 2021 – Dr. Carol Graham, Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution
  • “When Twin Public Health Crises Meet: Trends in Ill-Being and Deaths of Despair during the COVID Pandemic”

Past Seminars

The 2019-2020 seminar series focused on resilience on the individual, city, and policy level.

• September 25, 2019 – Anita Chandra, DrPH, Vice President and Director of RAND Social and Economic Well-Being 
  • “Building Community Resilience: Grassroots and Grasstops”
• October 23, 2019 – Willem Kuyken, PhD, Ritblat Professor of Mindfulness and Psychological Science, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford

  

  • “Preventing Depression Across the Lifespan with Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy”
• November 20, 2019 – George Bonanno, PhD, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Columbia University Teachers College
  • “Resilience to Loss and Trauma: What is it and why are we (usually, but not always) good at it?”
• January 22, 2020 – Karmel Choi, PhD, Clinical and Research Fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • “Psychological Resilience: What Can Genomic Approaches Teach Us?”
• February 26, 2020 – Alonzo Plough, PhD, Clinical Professor of Health Services, University of Washington School of Public Health, Vice President for Research and Evaluation and Chief Science Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
  • “Moving from Disparities to Equity to Thriving: Operationalizing a Culture of Health”

The 2018-2019 seminar series focused on the two themes: (1) translation and communication and (2) biology and well-being.

• September 26, 2018 – Steve Gortmaker, PhD, Professor of the Practice of Health Sociology, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • “Translating Research for Policy and Practice: the CHOICES Project and Implications for Happiness”
• October 17, 2018 – Gina McCarthy, MSc, Professor of the Practice of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • “Translating Science to Policy: Lessons from Climate Change”
• October 25, 2018 – Richard J. Davidson, PhD, William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Founder and Director of the Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison

  

  • “Well-being Is a Skill”
• November 28, 2018 – David Silbersweig, MD, Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Co-Director for Institute for the Neurosciences, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School Dean for Academic Programs at Partners HealthCare, Stanley Cobb Professor of Psychiatry, HMS
  • “Brain Systems for Resilience”
• January 23, 2019 – Eric Loucks, PhD, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Associate Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Associate Professor of Medicine, Brown University
  • “Population Health Impacts of Mindfulness: Opportunities, Evidence, and Pitfalls”
• February 27, 2019 – Winnie Yip, PhD, Professor of the Practice of International Health Policy and Economics, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • “From Social Experiments to Policy Decisions: China’s Health Care Reform”
• March 27, 2019 – Karen Emmons, PhD, Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • “Building an Evidence Base that is Useful for Population Health”
• April 24, 2019 – Suzanne Segerstrom, PhD, Professor of Psychology, University of Kentucky
  • “Well-being, Immunosenescence, and the Brain”