Lumen Christi Institute

Martin E.P. Seligman is the Director of the Penn Positive Psychology Center and Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology in the Penn Department of Psychology. He is also Director of the Penn Master of Applied Positive Psychology program (MAPP). He was President of the American Psychological Association in 1998, during which one of his presidential initiatives was the promotion of Positive Psychology as a field of scientific study. He is a leading authority in the fields of Positive Psychology, resilience, learned helplessness, depression, optimism and pessimism. He is also a recognized authority on interventions that prevent depression, and build strengths and well-being. He has written more than 350 scholarly publications and 30 books.

He received his A.B. from Princeton University, Summa Cum Laude (Philosophy), 1964; Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (Psychology), 1967; Ph.D., Honoris causa, Uppsala University, Sweden, 1989; Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris causa, Massachusetts College of Professional Psychology, 1997; Ph.D., Honoris causa, Complutense University, Spain, 2003; and Ph.D., Honoris causa, University of East London, 2006.

Candace Vogler is the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Philosophy and Professor in the College at the University of Chicago, and Principal Investigator on "Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life," a project funded by the John Templeton Foundation.  She has authored two books, John Stuart Mill's Deliberative Landscape: An Essay in Moral Psychology (Routledge, 2001) and Reasonably Vicious (Harvard University Press, 2002), and essays in ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy and literature, cinema, psychoanalysis, gender studies, sexuality studies, and other areas.  Her research interests are in practical philosophy (particularly the strand of work in moral philosophy indebted to Elizabeth Anscombe), practical reason, Kant's ethics, Marx, and neo-Aristotelian naturalism.

She received a Ph.D. from University of Pittsburgh in 1994 and a Ph.D. certificate, Program for the Study of Culture, in 1992. She received a B.A. from Mills College in Philosophy with Honors in 1985.

Kristján Kristjánsson is Professor of Character Education and Virtue Ethics at the University of Birmingham, and Deputy Director of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. He has written extensively on themes in general education, moral education, educational psychology, moral philosophy and political philosophy.

Kristjánsson is the author of Social Freedom: The Responsibility View (C.U.P., 2006), Justifying Emotions: Pride and Jealousy (Routledge, 2002), Justice and Desert-Based Emotions (Ashgate, 2006), Aristotle, Emotions and Education (Ashgate, 2007), The Self and Its Emotions (C.U.P., 2010), Virtues and Vices in Positive Psychology (C.U.P., 2013) and Aristotelian Character Education (Routledge, 2015). Kristjánsson has published over 100 articles in international journals and has recently taken over as editor of Journal of Moral Education. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University, University of Konstanz, St. Edmund’s College (Cambridge University) and Institute of Education (University of London). In 1997, he was elected the Young Humanities Scholar of the Year by the Icelandic Council of Science, and in 2011 he was presented with the Ása Guðmundsdóttir Wright Award, the most prestigious scholarly award given annually to an Icelandic academic across the Sciences and Humanities.

Darcia Narvaez is Professor Emerita of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. Her research explores questions of species-typical and species-atypical development in terms of wellbeing, morality, and sustainable wisdom. Dr. Narvaez examines how early life experience (the evolved nest) influences moral functioning and wellbeing in children and adults. She integrates evolutionary, anthropological, neurobiological, clinical, developmental, and education sciences in her work. Questions that interest her include: How does early experience shape human nature? What do sustainable indigenous societies have to teach the modern world? What types of moral orientations do individuals develop in species-typical and -atypical environments? What is indigenous ecological wisdom and how do we cultivate it? How can educators and parents foster optimal development, wellbeing, and communal imagination? Her 2014 book won the 2015 William James Book Award from the APA and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award for research. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, and the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Narvaez received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

David Cloutier is Ordinary Professor of Theology/Ethics at the Catholic University of America, joining the faculty in 2016 after spending ten years at Mount St. Mary’s University (MD), where he held the Knott Professorship of Catholic Theology. He is the author of four books, including the award-winning The Vice of Luxury: Economic Excess in a Consumer Age (Georgetown University Press, 2015), and Walking God’s Earth: The Environment and Catholic Faith (Liturgical Press 2014). He is particularly interested in connecting Catholic moral theology to research about human behavior from the social sciences, and received a $40,000 grant from The Happiness and Well-Being Project at Saint Louis University to collaborate on publications on the ethics of virtue and human agency with psychologist Anthony Ahrens of American University. He teaches moral theology, with particular interests in economic ethics, sexual ethics, and the environment, and received the College Theology Society’s 2018 Monika Hellwig award for teaching excellence. Dr. Cloutier is active in traditional and web-based media, having been published in Commonweal, The Washington Post, U.S. Catholic, and other publications. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics in 2019. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in religion (theology & ethics) from Duke University. 

Sarah Schnitker is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University. Dr. Schnitker studies virtue and character development in adolescents and emerging adults, with a focus on the role of spirituality and religion in virtue formation. She specializes in the study of patience, self-control, gratitude, generosity, and thrift. She has published more than 75 peer-review articles and edited chapters, and has procured more than $10 million in funding as a principal investigator on multiple research grants. Dr. Schnitker is an Associate Editor for Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, an Editorial Board member for the Journal of Research in Personality, and a co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality.

Dr. Schnitker is the recipient of the Virginia Sexton American Psychological Association’s Division 36 Mentoring Award and the Student International Positive Psychology Association Mentor Award. She holds a Ph.D. and an MA in Personality and Social Psychology from the University of California, Davis, and a BA in Psychology from Grove City College.