Biosocial-CEN Kolloquium: Meike Bartels, The Power of Wellbeing

Happiness and wellbeing have emerged as important study subjects within and across many fields of research. A major driving force behind this is the association with physical and mental health and its pivotal role in socioeconomic issues and economic development. With the increased interest in the importance of wellbeing it is critically important to understand and reveal sources of individual differences. Prof Meike Bartels will present her work on happiness and wellbeing and describe the complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors. She will present the current state of art within the field of behavioral and molecular genetic research into wellbeing, including twin-family studies and molecular (epi)genetic findings and the search for the exposome. She will furthermore explain the importance of her findings for individuals and the society at large. Finally, she will describe why we should transform our society from a 'wellbeing society’ for some to a 'society based on wellbeing' for all.

Bio: Meike Bartels (1973) is University Research Chair Professor in Genetics and Wellbeing and Department Head at the Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She published over 250 papers in peer-reviewed journal including the first molecular genetic evidence for wellbeing in PNAS and the first genomic variant for wellbeing in Nature Genetics. She is the former President of the International Positive Psychology Association and the Behavior Genetics Association. She combines research with teaching. She was awarded a prestigious European Research Council Consolidator grant and an NWO VICI grant to build, expand and consolidate her line of research on Genetics and Wellbeing. She leads and supervises various research projects to gain insight into the underlying sources of variation in happiness and wellbeing. With the foundation Xplorit (the foundation for wellbeing and human potential), she explores a paradigm shift towards a new governance of commons, in which the principles of wellbeing are the starting point, enabling collectives of human potential, in order to address today’s and tomorrow’s societal challenges.

Join in person at the MPIB or remotely via WebEx: https://mpib-berlin.webex.com/mpib-berlin/j.php?MTID=maff3dee0ad54cb921191ff33d0b92347

Meeting number: 2744 645 6180

Password: ArpQMePJ352