Marc Brackett
Marc Brackett is a research psychologist, professor at the Yale School of Medicine, and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. A leading authority on the role of emotions in learning, decision-making, relationships, and well-being, Brackett has dedicated his career to advancing scientific understanding of emotional intelligence and translating that understanding into practical tools for schools, workplaces, and families.
Brackett’s personal journey into the field of emotional intelligence began in childhood. He grew up in a household where emotions were rarely discussed and often suppressed, and he was profoundly affected by the guidance of an uncle who gave him the first permission he had ever received to talk honestly about how he felt. That relationship, and its transformative impact on his development, became a foundation for his life’s work — a conviction that emotional literacy is not a soft skill but a fundamental human competency with profound implications for health, relationships, and social outcomes.
His research at Yale spans over two decades and has produced more than 125 articles and chapters on emotional intelligence in educational, occupational, and clinical settings. He is the co-developer of RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning now used in thousands of schools across the United States and internationally. RULER — an acronym for Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions — offers students and educators a practical framework for developing the emotional skills that underlie academic achievement, mental health, and constructive social behavior.
His book Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Our Communities, and Ourselves Thrive (2019) brings his research to a general audience with unusual clarity and personal depth. Drawing on science, his own biography, and powerful stories from students, teachers, and leaders, Brackett makes the case that the suppression of emotional experience is one of the most costly and underacknowledged problems in contemporary life — and that giving ourselves and others permission to feel, fully and honestly, is the foundation of genuine flourishing.
Brackett has consulted with organizations including Microsoft, Amazon, the New York Mets, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). He has delivered keynotes at major conferences and been featured in media outlets including CNN, NPR, and The New York Times. His work represents one of the most rigorous and practically grounded approaches to emotional intelligence available today.
