Niobe Way

Dr. Niobe Way is an internationally recognized Professor of Developmental Psychology, the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH) at NYU, the Center for Connection-By-Design Technology at NYU, and the Social Health Institute (Shi) that trains leaders and educators in a the skills of relational intelligence. She is also the director of the Science of Human Connection Lab and a Principal Investigator of the Listening with Curiosity Project that has been implemented in schools across NYC and has been empirically proven to foster social and emotional wellbeing, a sense of a common humanity, and academic engagement. Dr. Way is a member of the New Pluralists Collaborative, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundaton, and an invited member of the first state level Social Health Council.

Dr. Way nearly four decades of federally funded research in the United States and two decades in China focuses on social and emotional development, mental health, social health, friendships, families, schools and the larger cultural forces that shape them. Her research was pivotal in changing the guidelines for Division 51 of the American Psychological Association, establishing friendships as a protective factor and adherence to norms of masculinity as a risk factor for boys and young men. She was the President of the Society for Research on Adolescence, received her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard School of Education, and was an NIMH postdoctoral fellow in the Psychology Department at Yale.

Dr. Way has authored or co-authored over a hundred peer reviewed journal articles and 8 books, including "Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection" (Harvard University Press), which was the inspiration for "Close," a movie that won the Grand Prix Award at Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film, and "Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture" that was a bestseller on Amazon. Her newest book "Our Social Nature in an Anti-Social Culture: A Five Part Story: for Harvard University press will be released in the spring of 2027.

Dr. Way’s work has been cited in mainstream media for over a decade, and she has been profiled in The New Yorker and The New York Times, interviewed on the Daily Show with Roy Wood, and been a guest on the Today show twice.