Maurice Elias, PH.D.

SECD Lab Director

Professor of Psychology, Rutgers; Director, Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab; Co-Director, Collaborative Center for Community-Based Research and Service; Co-Director, Academy for SEL in Schools

He is Past President of the Society for Community Research and Action/Division of Community Psychology (27) of APA and has received the SCRA Distinguished Contribution to Practice and Ethnic Minority Mentoring Awards, as well as APA’s National Psychological Consultants to Management Award, the Joseph E. Zins Memorial Senior Scholar Award for Social-Emotional Learning from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the John P. McGovern Medal from the American School Health Association, and the Sanford McDonnell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Character Education.

Dr. Elias lectures nationally and internationally to educators and parents about students’ emotional intelligence, school success, and social-emotional and character development. Dr. Elias writes a blog for the George Lucas Educational Foundation’s Edutopia Website. For a list of selected publications, please click here.

Outside the lab you can find me: Watching the Yankees, the Rangers and the Knicks and teaching my grandchildren to do the same.