Mark Setton

Mark Setton, D.Phil., has studied and published works on East Asian philosophy for the past 30 years. He earned his B.A. and M.A. at Sungkyunkwan University, the only Confucian university in Asia. He has taught at the State University of New York at Stonybrook, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University, where he earned his doctorate. He is presently teaching East Asian philosophy and world religions, as well as his favorite course "Perspectives on Happiness," at the University of Bridgeport.

Allison Aboud

Allison Aboud Holzer, MAT, MFA, CPCC, is a Positive Psychology Coach working with students, graduates, and educators on professional and personal development. She uses evidence-based positive psychology techniques, which emphasize utilizing strengths and positive emotions to maximize achievement and happiness. As a certified teacher with experience in education research, Allison has learned how to translate research into school resources that are valuable to students and teachers. Allison coaches, conducts professional development workshops, and researches, writes and teaches on topics in positive psychology and coaching in conjunction with Pursuit-of-Happiness.org and Yale University's EI Schools project.

Curt Tucker

Curt Tucker, MA, CM, has dual discipline graduate work in both the Scientific Psychology area as well as in Educational Psychology and Guidance from Eastern Illinois University.

He is a Certified Business Manager through the Institute of Certified Professional Managers.

He has been a practicing therapist for over twenty five years. His therapeutic work has focused on the development of positive life style programs for individuals as well as family counseling and in the area of residential treatment for children and adults. 

He currently is focused on positive communication and design via new electronic media forms and outlets. He owns and operates Artotems Co. a company that specializes in multimedia documents for communication on the web. His philosophy of life and vocation is simply, “Better communication = a better world”.

 Paul Desan

Paul Desan, MD, PhD, is Director of the Psychiatric Consultation Service for Yale New Haven Hospital. He obtained an A.B. in psychology at Princeton University, a Ph.D. in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and an M.D. at Yale University School of Medicine. His present research interests include mood disorders, particularly Seasonal Affective Disorder or S.A.D., and how S.A.D. can be used as a model to measure the interaction of psychological factors such as stress and cognitive style, and biological factors including seasonal cues. One focus of interest is the question of how a resilient individual can regulate mood and maintain life satisfaction in medical illness and existential loss.

Dr. Rashid works as a Psychologist for the Toronto District School Board, Ontario Canada. Dr. Rashid completed his pre-doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked with
Dr. Martin Seligman, one of the leading experts in optimism and happiness.
Dr. Rashid’s expertises include happiness, resilience and positive psychology training, with an emphasis on dealing with adversity, trauma and loss through strength-based approaches. He has several teaching and research awards and has trained professionals including educators, mental health professional and business executives in happiness based interventions. He also worked with Asian tsunami survivors and 9/11 families. His research has won several awards and has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has also been featured in Wall Street Journal, Psychology Today, and the Globe and Mail.
As a native of Pakistan, and influenced by Sufi, yogic and Buddhist philosophy, Dr. Rashid advocates active and realistic search for the half-full portion of the proverbial glass to survive, thrive and flourish.

 Pamela Gray

Pamela Gray earned a Ph.D. in History and Anthropology from the University of Southern California. She has taught at every level from elementary through university and holds a California credential for instruction in History, Language Arts, and English as a Second Language. Her research interests explore using visual images as teaching tools and educational assessment incorporating the ethnographic process. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Prentice Hall Publishers, and Pearson Education have published her print and online curriculum materials, and her school-wide curriculum designs are in use in secondary and middle charter schools in Los Angeles Unified School District and the Portland (Oregon) Public Schools.

 Christine Carter

Christine Carter, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and the creator of the “Science for Raising Happy Kids” website (greatergoodparents.org). She is a sociologist who studies the childhood roots of happiness. Carter received her B.A. from Dartmouth College, where she was a Senior Fellow, and her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. Her first book, The Other Side of Silence, has been dubiously recognized as one of the books most frequently stolen out of university libraries, and is now often housed in special collections with feminist theory.
Carter has worked in marketing management, as a school administrator, and as an innovation consultant for Fortune 500 companies. She has appeared on Oprah and other talk shows, been a key-note speaker at Harvard and numerous other schools and professional groups, and been featured in dozens of local and national magazines and newspapers. She has two children and lives with her family outside of San Francisco.