Before concluding his service in June 2024, Peter Salovey was the twenty-third president of Yale University, appointed in July 2013. He is a Sterling Professor of Psychology, holding secondary faculty appointments in the School of Management, School of Public Health, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and Department of Sociology.
During his presidential tenure, President Emeritus Salovey led the development of new programs and facilities across the schools and departments of Yale, consistent with the vision and strategy he articulated earlier in his presidency. Advancements included restructuring and expanding the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, launching the Jackson School of Global Affairs, transitioning the Yale School of Public Health into a self-supporting independent school from the Yale School of Medicine, and opening two new residential colleges, increasing Yale College enrollment by 15 percent. He also advanced innovative teaching on campus; amplified Yale’s partnerships in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world; and enhanced multidisciplinary collaboration and entrepreneurial opportunity for faculty and students. President Emeritus Salovey was—and remains—committed to improving access to a Yale education for students worldwide regardless of their financial background.
Prior to becoming president, President Emeritus Salovey served as the provost of Yale University from 2008 to 2013. As provost, he facilitated strategic planning and initiatives such as enhancing career development and mentoring opportunities for all Yale faculty members; promoting faculty diversity; creating the Office of Academic Integrity; establishing the University-wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct; developing the West Campus; and overseeing the university’s budget during the global financial crisis. Other leadership roles at Yale have included serving as chair of the Department of Psychology, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and dean of Yale College.
After receiving an A.B. (psychology) and A.M. (sociology) from Stanford University in 1980 with departmental honors and university distinction, President Emeritus Salovey earned three degrees at Yale in psychology: M.S. (1983), M.Phil. (1984), and Ph.D. (1986). Since joining the Yale faculty in 1986, he has studied the connections among emotion, health communication, and health behavior, with a special focus on emotional intelligence. He played key roles in multiple Yale programs including the Health, Emotion, and Behavior Laboratory, which President Emeritus Salovey founded; the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS; and the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program.
President Emeritus Salovey has authored or edited over a dozen books translated into eleven languages and published hundreds of journal articles and essays. With John D. Mayer, he developed a broad framework called “emotional intelligence,” the theory that just as people have a wide range of intellectual abilities, they also have a wide range of measurable emotional skills that profoundly affect their thinking and action.
In addition to teaching and mentoring scores of graduate students, President Emeritus Salovey has won both the William Clyde DeVane Medal for Distinguished Scholarship and Teaching in Yale College and the Lex Hixon ’63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Pretoria (2009), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2014), National Tsing Hua University (2014), Harvard University (2015), McGill University (2018), University of Haifa (2018), and Vytautas Magnus University (2019). In 2013, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
President Emeritus Salovey and his wife, Marta Elisa Moret, have lived in New Haven since they arrived as graduate students more than forty years ago. Ms. Moret, a 1984 graduate of the Yale School of Public Health, is the president of Urban Policy Strategies, LLC, which provides program evaluation and technical assistance to community-based health organizations. Ms. Moret is active with the Yale Alumni Association and has served on its board of governors. She was an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Public Health, Southern Connecticut State University, where she taught maternal and child health for many years. She previously held positions in the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, and the Hispanic Health Council.
Ms. Moret was the deputy commissioner for the Connecticut Department of Social Services from 1991 to 1994. She chairs the board of the Campaign School at Yale and serves on the board of the Fair Haven Community Health Center. Previously, she served on the boards of the New Alliance Foundation and Story Corps. Ms. Moret was named to the Winslow Centennial Honor Roll for Excellence and Service of the Yale School of Public Health in 2015, received the Alexis de Tocqueville Herbert H. Pearce Award from the United Way of Greater New Haven in 2019, and was awarded the Junior Achievement of Southwest New England’s Spirit of Hope Award winner in 2020. In 2024, she received recognition for Outstanding Service from the Yale Club of New Haven, for her more than a decade of work helping to implement the Yale Book Award for New Haven schoolchildren.