Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is a professor of education, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California. A social-affective neuroscientist and human development psychologist, she studies social-emotion and self-awareness across cultures, connections to cognition, resilience, identity and moral development, and implications for schools. A former public junior-high-school science teacher, she earned her doctorate at Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 2005. Since then she has received numerous national awards, including the PNAS Cozzarelli Prize, a US ARMY honor coin, a commendation from Los Angeles County, and early career achievement awards from the Association for Psychological Science, American Educational Research Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science and FABBS. Immordino-Yang is the inaugural recipient of the International Mind, Brain and Education Society (IMBES) award for Transforming Education through Neuroscience, and was elected 2016-2018 IMBES president. She is a distinguished scientist on the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development. Immordino-Yang holds an NSF Career award and is serving on the NAS committee writing How People Learn II. Her newest book, Emotions, Learning and the Brain: Exploring the Educational Implications of Affective Neuroscience, is available from WWNorton publishers. The proceeds are donated to education-related causes.
