Catherine A. Sanderson is the Manwell Family Professor in Life Sciences (Psychology) at Amherst College. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a specialization in Health and Development, from Stanford University, and received both masters and doctoral degrees in psychology from Princeton University.

Professor Sanderson’s research examines how personality and social variables influence health-related behaviors such as safer sex and disordered eating, the development of persuasive messages and interventions to prevent unhealthy behavior, and the predictors of relationship satisfaction.

This research has received grant funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health. Professor Sanderson has published more than 25 journal articles and book chapters in addition to five college textbooks, a high school health textbook, and a popular press book on parenting.

In 2012, she was named one of the country’s top 300 professors by the Princeton Review. Professor Sanderson speaks regularly to public and corporate audiences on such topics as the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, the mind-body connection, and the psychology of good and evil.