On Sept. 25, the Nova Campfire, “Nurturing Societies: Cultivating Cooperation for Sustainable Well-Being,” recognized that the flourishing of people, places, and our planet depends on embracing altruistic, whole-of-society approaches that prioritize the health and well-being of all life, including through sociocultural and policy means. This transition requires moving away from the current culture of competition, rooted in scarcity, toward a culture of cooperation grounded in optimism and guided by a vision of collective future potential.
Truly sustainable societies must ensure today’s generation has access to the ingredients for a good life while also safeguarding the environment for future generations—without viewing these as competing interests. Advancing technology is exponentially enhancing our capability to alleviate human suffering and solve environmental challenges. Cooperative societies grounded in holistic perspectives, ethical wisdom, kindness, and empathy will accelerate these capacities even further.
This event explored how nurturing environments and cultivating positive aspects of human nature (including empathy, compassion, and altruism and “light triad” personality traits) may accelerate this collaborative cultural shift to benefit individuals, societies, and our relationship with nature—especially when these efforts begin in early life.
Watch the entire event below or scroll for individual presentations.
Program and Panelists
There will be brief introduction from Susan Prescott, Director of the Nova Network, and Brian Berman, President and Founder of the Nova Institute for Health. Panelists will speak for approximately 5-7 minutes, weaving their narrative threads to provide the fabric for discussion that all attendees can then contribute to.
Welcome
Professor Brian Berman, MD, is the president and founder of the Nova Institute for Health and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he was director of the Center for Integrative Medicine. He is one of the most highly funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers in the field of integrative and complementary medicine. A pioneer in the field and founder of the first U.S. academic medical center-based program for integrative medicine in 1991, he received two Bravewell Collaborative awards in leadership and service. He continues to conduct NIH-funded research at University of Maryland and promote a broad vision of health through leadership at Nova Institute for Health.
A Culture of Cooperation for Human Well-being and Global Sustainability
Susan Prescott is director of the Nova Network. She is a professor of planetary health at University of Western Australia, editor-in-chief of Challenges, and a Scholar at the Nova Institute for Health in Baltimore. She is internationally recognized for cutting-edge research into early environmental determinants of health and disease. Her global work promotes awareness of the interconnections between personal and planetary health in ways that inspire creative, integrated, and wise approaches, grounded in reciprocity, for social and ecological justice and flourishing futures.
The Biology of Kindness: Promoting Healthier, Happier Societies
Immaculata De Vivo is Melanie Mason Niemiec ’71 Faculty Co-Director of the Sciences at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School for Public Health. She is an international leader in the molecular and genetic epidemiology of cancer and co-author of the book Biology of Kindness, which explores the biological underpinning of prosocial behaviors and kindness. She is a leader in the field of telomere biology and has demonstrated how lifestyle choices can affect telomere shortening. Her unique interdisciplinary approach to understanding the impact of natural variation on cancer risk combines molecular biology, genetics, and epidemiology. Her work has changed how the field thinks about the effect of the environment on our DNA.
Social Movements for Kindness, Peace, and Cooperation at a National and Global Level
Daniel Lumera is a bestselling author, naturalist biologist, expert in the sciences of well-being and quality of life, and former monk for 11 years who studied with Anthony Elenjimittam, a direct disciple of Gandhi. His latest book, co-authored with fellow presenter Immaculata De Vivo, Biology of Kindness adds to his many international contributions to wellness science, quality of life, and meditation practices.
He is creator of the My Life Design method, the conscious life design methodology applied internationally in public and private companies, the school system, prisons, health care institutions. Daniel founded the Voluntary Organization My Life Design that contributes to high social impact, such as the International Day of Forgiveness, which has received the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic, and the International Kindness Movement, aimed at promoting the values of kindness, peace, and cooperation at a global level.
Cultivating the “Light Triad” for Personal Well-Being and More Evolved Societies
Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist and humanistic psychologist world-renowned for his groundbreaking research on intelligence, creativity, and human potential—including his foundational work on the “light triad.” He is a professor at Columbia University and founder and director of the Center for Human Potential. Scott hosts The Psychology Podcast which is frequently ranked the #1 psychology podcast in the world. In 2015, he was named one of “50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world” by Business Insider. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Psychology Today, and Harvard Business Review, and he is the author and editor of 10 books. He received his MPhil in experimental psychology from the University of Cambridge under a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and a PhD in cognitive psychology from Yale University.
Benevolent Childhood Experiences Predict Adult Flourishing and Light Triad Traits: A Path to Social Change?
Miguel Landa-Blanco is a clinical psychologist and leading psychology researcher in Honduras exploring the relationship between early life experiences and adult flourishing—with a particular focus on positive experiences and “light” personality traits. He is a professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH), associated researcher for the Gender Based Violence (GBV) Institute at the Universidad Francisco Gavidia in El Salvador, and has a private practice in clinical psychology. He holds a PhD in educational research and is currently pursuing a second PhD in psychology at the University of Granada.
Breaking the Cycle: Returning to Evolved Nest Experiences that Promote Well-Being, Morality, and Sustainable Wisdom
Darcia Narvaez is professor emerita at the University of Notre Dame. Her research explores questions of species-typical and species-atypical development in terms of well-being, morality, and sustainable wisdom. She examines how early life experience (or the evolved nest) influences moral functioning and well-being in children and adults. She integrates evolutionary, anthropological, neurobiological, clinical, developmental, and education sciences in her work. She has a Masters of Divinity from Luther Seminary and a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota. Her 2014 book won the 2015 William James Book Award from the APA and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award for research. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, and the American Educational Research Association. She hosts the website EvolvedNest.Org and is president of KindredMedia.org.
Action Circles for Nurturing Communities: Improving Our Lives and Our World
Anthony Biglan, PhD, is a senior scientist at Oregon Research Institute and a leading figure in the development of prevention science. He is author of The Nurture Effect and Rebooting Capitalism: How We Can Forge a Society That Works for Everyone.
His research over the past thirty years has helped to identify effective family, school, and community interventions to prevent all of the most common and costly problems of childhood and adolescence. He is a leader in efforts to use prevention science to build more nurturing families, schools, and communities throughout the world. In recent years, his work has shifted to more comprehensive interventions that have the potential to prevent the entire range of child and adolescent problems. He is a former president of the Society for Prevention Research and founder of the nonprofit Values to Action to advance grassroots efforts to reform and improve diverse aspects of well-being.
