ELIZABETH DUNN is an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard University, where she worked with Dan Gilbert (best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness). She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia in 2004, and a post-doc in Australia at the University of New South Wales. In 2004, at age 26, she was featured as one of the "rising stars" across all of academia by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Dunn has won awards both for her engaging teaching style and for her groundbreaking research on happiness. In 2007, she was selected as an honoree for the UK-based Mind Gym Academic Prize for pioneering work in positive psychology. In 2010, she won UBC's Killam Faculty Research Prize, which honors the university's most distinguished researchers.
Dunn's research focuses on uncovering hidden causes of happiness and has been published in top peer-reviewed psychology journals (such as Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). She has also published two papers in Science in the past three years. Her 2008 Science paper, with co-author Mike Norton, entitled "Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness" was featured in over 300 media outlets worldwide, including National Public Radio, the BBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hindustan Times, and China Daily. Dunn is currently Associate Editor of Perspectives on Psychological Science.
