2018 APS Mentor Award

Lisa Feldman Barrett

Northeastern University

Lisa Feldman Barrett, University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University, is among the most important affective scientists of our time. Her interdisciplinary research challenges traditional theories of emotion, transforming how we conceptualize emotion and how we study it.

In addition to being a revolutionary scientist, Lisa Feldman Barrett has also been an exceptional mentor for more than 60 students and junior colleagues around the world. She has trained and encouraged scientists in her lab and beyond it, and she has helped build a productive and supportive community of affective scientists. She teaches scientists to be curious, brave, and persistent and nurtures them as individuals who integrate research into the complexity of life. Her door is always open. She provides consistent support in the face of success and failure. Many affective scientists consider her advice, training, and support to be essential to their careers. Many have themselves become successful and influential scientists, following in her footsteps.

Her students describe her as “inspirational,” “an incredible mentor and role model,” “generous,” “sensitive,” “a model of passion and perseverance,” “a brilliant intellectual,” “a leader,” “fearless,” “dedicated,” “helpful,” “thoughtful,” “selfless,” “warm and kind,” and a true lover of science whose passion is infectious and enticing.

Barrett is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) and has served on the APS Board of Directors. She has won multiple awards for her groundbreaking research on the nature of emotion, including the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. She is a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Royal Society of Canada, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Mind and Life Institute.