Center for Human Potential and Public Policy

Advancing Research and Training on Achievement, Health and Well-Being Across the Lifespan

About Us

The Center for Human Potential and Public Policy, which was founded in 1998 with an endowment from the Irving B. Harris Foundation, is a university-based center that promotes trans-disciplinary research and training on achievement, health, and well-being across the lifespan. The Center is located within the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. In the University of Chicago tradition, the Center encourages innovative research on human potential and public policy that transcends the academic disciplines. The Center thus has three cross-cutting program areas cultivating student and faculty research across a broad spectrum of interests at the Harris School and the University. The Center also has an active training program for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. The research and training activities of the Center are motivated by the goal of understanding the human condition from pre-birth to old age and identifying the public policies and technologies that support achievement, health, and well-being across the lifespan.

News and Announcements

• Center director, Professor Ariel Kalil, gives talk at the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations of the Australian Government on the links between parental nonstandard work schedules (working evenings/nights, weekends or an irregular shift), marital instability, and children’s well-being in the United States. (pdf)
• Center sponsors new student group of future leaders in child and family policy. The new group will provide networking and internship opportunities in child and family policy for Harris School students and will also be engaged in outreach efforts in the community.
• Professor Robert W. Fairlie gives second Annual Lecture on Science, Technology & Society - November 20, 2008
• Center Affiliates Ofer Malamud and Ioana Marinescu awarded CHPPP Faculty Development Awards for 2008-2009.
• Ofer Malamud’s research supported by CHPPP Faculty Development Award on the Effects of Computer Use on Academic Achievement cited in Slate: "The $100 Distraction Device" Slate, June 5, 2008.
• Ariel Kalil recently visited Australia to make research connections on behalf of the Center and develop plans for exchange programs for the Center’s postdoctoral fellows and affiliated graduate students to spend time in Australian government policy departments focused on social policies with which the Center is concerned. While she was there, she was interviewed on the national radio station of Australia, the ABC. Listen to the interview.
• Center for Human Potential Post-Doctoral Fellow, Lindsey Leininger awarded prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship
• Center becomes home to Harpel Initiative to Improve Educational Outcomes in Brazil