Prof. Corey Keyes

Corey Keyes is a Professor of Sociology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a member of a MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development, a co-chair of the first Summit of Positive Psychology in 1999, and a member of the 2007 National Academies of Science Keck Future’s Initiative on The Future of Human Healthspan: Demography, Evolution, Medicine and Bioengineering. He is a senior fellow at Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion and its multidisciplinary 5-year project on the “Pursuit of Happiness” funded in part by the Templeton Foundation.

His research centers on illuminating the “Dual Continuum” model of health and illness, showing how the absence of mental illness does not translate into the presence of “flourishing” mental health, and revealing that the biological and psychosocial causes of true health are often distinct processes from those now understood as the causes of illness. This work is being applied to better understanding resilience and prevention of mental illness, and informs the growing healthcare approach called “Predictive Healthcare,” which seeks to map and monitor and apply novel responses to correct early deviations from true health to maintain health and limit disease and illness. Corey is currently working on these issues with governmental agencies in England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, the Mental Health Commission and the Public Health Agency of Canada, and with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA.