Robert John Waldinger, MD

Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and Zen priest. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of adult life ever done. The Study tracked the lives of two groups of men for over 78 years and now follows their Baby Boomer children to understand how childhood experience reaches across decades to affect health and wellbeing in middle age. He writes about what science can teach us about healthy human development.

Dr. Waldinger is the author of numerous scientific papers as well as two books, and he directs a teaching program in psychotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He has won awards for teaching and research from the American Psychiatric Association, Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, and he is consistently named as one of the Best Doctors in America. He is also a transmitted teacher in Boundless Way Zen and teaches Zen throughout New England.

His TED talk on lessons from the longest study of happiness has had over 13 million views and is the fastest spreading talk in the history of TEDx events. Research updates and Dr. Waldinger’s writing can be found at www.robertwaldinger.com.