ProSocial World is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization

Belief

We believe that to catalyze rapid, positive cultural change we need to recognize our interconnectedness and continuously improve the relationships we have with ourselves, each other and the planet.

Purpose

Consciously evolve a world that works for all.

Through a process of humble inquiry and practical application of both inner and outer work, ProSocial helps foster collaboration within and between groups at multiple scales – emulating the cooperation of a multicellular super-organism.

Our science-based approach integrates previously isolated academic disciplines and can be applied to all topic areas (e.g., health, education, business, sustainability, spirituality...) and all scales from small groups to large networks and organizations, to the whole planet.

Explore Our Communities of Practice

Use our interactive logo to explore our communities of practice.

A new story is emerging for the human family. ProSocial World aims to serve as a cultural catalyst to help facilitate positive change and widespread cooperation.

Read 2022 Annual Report

Our core team

The
ProSocial World
Core Team

Ashle Bailey-Gilreath
Operations Manager
Beth Hawkins
Director of Research
Eric Johnson
Managing Editor of This View of Life
Ian MacDonald
Research Lead
Jeff Genung Managing Director
Kate Sheehan Roach
Director of ProSocial Spirituality
Juliet Buddiga
Manager of Marketing and Communications
Robert Styles
Director of Learning and Engagement
Sage Gibbons
Strategic Technology Manager and Research Lead
Susi Hanisch
ProSocial Schools Research Coordinator

Board of
Directors

Guru Madhavan

Senior Director of Programs for the National Academy of Engineering & Chairman of the Board for ProSocial World

Guru Serves as Chairman of the Board and Treasurer of ProSocial World. He is the Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and Senior Director of Programs for the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and Director of Forum on Complex Unifiable Systems (FOCUS). He has served as a vice president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA) and was a founding member of the Global Young Academy, and has been named a distinguished young scientist by the World Economic Forum. Guru began thinking holistically about engineering from an evolutionary perspective as a graduate student and now is a senior spokesperson for the profession at the NAE and as the author of Applied Minds: How Engineers Think.

Michele Gelfand

Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology at Stanford University

Michele is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Professor of Psychology by Courtesy at Stanford University. Michele uses field, experimental, computational, and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture, as well as its multilevel consequences for human groups. Her work has been cited over 20,000 times. Michele is trained as an organizational and cross-cultural psychologist and has moved to Stanford after a distinguished academic career in the department of psychology at the University of Maryland-College Park. Her pioneering work on an axis of cultural variation, from “tight” to “loose”, is summarized in her book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World.

Dr. Norman Anderson

Assistant Vice President for Research and Academic Affairs at Florida State University

Dr. Anderson is Assistant Vice President for Research and Academic Affairs at Florida State University (FSU), where he is also the Director of the FSU Faculty Leadership Development Program. He served as CEO and Executive VP of the American Psychological Association (APA). Dr. Anderson was the founding Associate Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in charge of social and behavioral science and was the first Director of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). Dr. Anderson served as an associate professor at Duke University and as a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is well-known for his research and writing on health and behavior and racial/ethnic and economic health disparities.

Rita Colwell

Professor at the University of Maryland College Park and President of CosmosID

Rita is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland College Park and President of CosmosID. She served as the 11th director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). She has authored or co-authored 17 books and more than 800 scientific publications. Rita has been awarded 57 honorary degrees from institutions of higher education. She has also produced the award-winning film, Invisible Seas, and has served on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals. Rita’s scientific training is in microbial ecology and molecular genetics, where she pioneered both groundbreaking techniques and concepts in disease epidemiology. She has also been a fierce and effective advocate for gender and ethnic equality in science, as she recounts in her book A Lab of One’s Own: One Woman’s Personal Journey Through Sexism in Science.

Kiran Bali

Kiran was Awarded the Member of the British Empire Honour in 2007 by HM Queen Elizabeth II for exceptional interfaith leadership, Kiran has led global interfaith cooperation and impact for over a decade through extraordinvary global leadership and selfless service. In 2022, Kiran Bali MBE JP has been honored by New York State Assemblyman Hon. Nader Sayegh for her distinguished Interfaith achievements and embodying excellence exceptionally consistent with the values of New York State. In 2022, she was honored with the Interfaith Leadership Award by the Board of Directors of the World Yoga Community (peaceful coexistence), affiliated with the United Nations. She is well known internationally as an inspirational spokesperson in the areas of interfaith impact, environmental justice, women’s empowerment, and community cohesion. Kiran has given inspiring speeches in over 25 countries on women’s empowerment, environmental action, and interfaith impact. As a Hindu Scholar for over 20 years, Kiran teaches Hinduism and Hindu values to students of all ages. Her regular interfaith initiatives reinforce the important role of interfaith cooperation through uniting people of all faiths and of no faith whilst promoting solidarity and devising viable solutions to challenges.

Barbara Oakley

Educator, Writer, Engineer

Barbara Oakley is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Her work focuses on the complex relationship between neuroscience and social behavior. She created and teaches Coursera’s “Learning How to Learn,” one of the world’s most popular massive open online course with over three million registered students, along with other popular “Top Online Courses of All Time.”  Barb is a New York Times best-selling author who has published in outlets as varied as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times—her book A Mind for Numbers has sold over a million copies worldwide. She has published as well on pathological altruism and altruism bias—important aspects of being truly prosocial. Barb is the winner of the McGraw Prize—the colloquial “Nobel Prize for Education” and is a Fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

David Sloan Wilson

Co-founder and President of ProSocial World

David is co-founder and President of ProSocial World. He is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology (Emeritus) at Binghamton University. He has made fundamental contributions to evolutionary theory in addition to its human-related applications. Previously he co-founded and served as President of the Evolution Institute and its online magazine This View of Life (TVOL), which continues as part of ProSocial World. He is working to establish a new paradigm for economics, public policy, and public discourse that is firmly based in science. He has written numerous books including This View of Life,Darwin’s Cathedral, Evolution for Everyone, Does Altruism Exist, and most recently his first novel Atlas Hugged. He also co-authored the book ProSocial.

Paul Atkins

Co-founder, Vice President and Chief Program Officer of ProSocial World

Paul is co-founder and serves as Vice President and Chief Program Officer of ProSocial World. After a distinguished career as an academic and practicing organizational psychologist, Paul founded the ProSocial Institute and developed the ProSocial Facilitator Training program. Paul is an author, facilitator, and researcher working to publicize the idea of the commons and provide practical approaches to facilitation to help build the commons. He is also first author of the book ProSocial: Using Evolutionary Science to Build Productive, Equitable, and Collaborative Groups.Paul's research career has been focused on enhancing relationships. He co-edited the book “Mindfulness in Organisations” (CUP). He is the past President of the Australia and New Zealand Association for Contextual Behavioural Science and a Fellow of the international Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. His work integrates the sciences of behavior change with the Nobel prize-winning work of Elinor Ostrom on the commons.

Jeff Genung

Managing Director of ProSocial World

Jeff serves as Managing Director and Chief Architect of ProSocial World. Previously he co-founded Contemplative Life, a non-profit organization and digital hub connecting people and communities with transformative practices. He also co-founded Transformation365.org, an experiential practice network. Most recently, he helped launch ProSocial Spirituality, a learning and research initiative exploring the integration of evolutionary science and evolutionary spirituality. Jeff spent many years as an entrepreneur and technology executive. His current focus is exploring the intersection of science, spirituality, the arts, and technology in service of a compassionate and cooperative world.