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Positive Psychology

How a brain tumor helped a cyclist change his life
Chris Baccash racing on a bike in a cycling race.

In 2019, Baccash finished the Bucks County Classic, the hardest race of the season, with a personal-best time. A few months later, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. (Image: Penn Medicine News)

How a brain tumor helped a cyclist change his life

In 2019, Chris Baccash was diagnosed with a a slow-growing malignant brain tumor. In 2021, after completing a grueling 100-mile cycling race up the Rockies, he started graduate school at Penn for a master’s degree in positive psychology.

From Penn Medicine News

Art museums plant seeds of human flourishing
A view of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a long building of orange brick and blue angled roofs. The Schuylkill River flows in the foreground.

A view of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the Schuylkill River. A recent review shows the many ways that art museums benefit human flourishing. 

Art museums plant seeds of human flourishing

Researchers from the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project in the Positive Psychology Center at Penn have found that art museums are associated with wide-ranging benefits to human health.

Luis Melecio-Zambrano

The past, present, and future of the Positive Humanities
Book cover that reads "Oxford Library of Psychology, edited by Louis Tay, James O. Pawelski, The Oxford Handbook of The Positive Humanities" next to a picture of James Pawelski.

The past, present, and future of the Positive Humanities

A new Oxford Handbook from Penn’s James Pawelski and Louis Tay of Purdue explores this emerging field, which brings together positive psychology, philosophy, the humanities, and the arts.

Michele W. Berger

Virtual workshops offer resilience training to Penn community
Rocks stacked in water.

Virtual workshops offer resilience training to Penn community

Penn’s Division of Human Resources, in collaboration with the Positive Psychology Center, is hosting virtual workshops as a part of a six-part series presenting core resilience during COVID.

Dee Patel