Marc A. Brackett

Marc Brackett, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, a professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University, and author of the best-selling book, Permission to Feel, which has been translated into 25 languages.

As an award-winning researcher for 25 years, Marc has raised over $100 million in grant funding and published 175 scholarly articles on the role of emotional intelligence in learning, decision-making, creativity, relationships, physical and mental health, and workplace performance.

Marc is the lead developer of RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning (SEL) that has been adopted by over 5,000 schools across the globe, improving the lives of millions of children and adults. RULER infuses the principles and skills of emotional intelligence into school systems, enhancing how administrators lead, educators teach, students learn, and families parent. It has been proven to boost academic performance, decrease school problems like bullying, enrich classroom climates, reduce teacher stress and burnout, and enhance teacher instructional practices.

Marc is featured regularly in popular media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Good Morning America, and The Today Show. He serves on the board of directors for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the nonprofit that founded the SEL field and he’s on the program board for the Mental Health Coalition, founded by Kenneth Cole and the Rare Beauty Mental Health Council, founded by Selena Gomez.

Marc has been the keynote speaker at over 700 conferences around the world, including the White House, U.S. Departments of Education and Defense, Surgeon General’s office, New York Times, Aspen Institute, the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and dozens of fortune 500 companies. Marc regularly consults with large companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft on best practices for integrating the principles of emotional intelligence into training and product design and is co-founder of Oji Life Lab, a corporate learning firm that develops innovative digital learning systems for emotional intelligence. In 2022, with Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann, Marc and his team co-created HowWeFeel, a free Apple award-winning app designed to teach emotion skills and enhance well-being.

In January 2024, Marc launched the YouTube webcast, Dealing With Feelings, where he interviews prominent scientists, actors, authors, musicians, sports figures, and other notable personalities to discover their mindsets about emotions and the strategies they use to attain goals, build healthy relationships, and have a sense of well-being in life. Marc’s intimate conversations will offer listeners practical skills and evidence-based strategies for regulating emotions in positive, intentional ways.

“I want everyone to become an emotion scientist,” Marc says. “We need to be curious explorers of our own and others’ emotions so they can enhance, rather than hinder our well-being and success in life.”

Marc also holds a 5^th degree black belt in Hapkido, a Korean martial art.