Paul Ekman

For 32 years, Paul Ekman was a Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco. He received his undergraduate education at the University of Chicago and New York University. He received his Ph.D. from Adelphi University in 1958 after spending a year in clinical internship at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, part of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

He served as chief psychologist in the U.S. Army, Fort Dix New Jersey from 1958-1960. On discharge he returned to UCSF where he held a three year postdoctoral research fellowship. He then initiated his research program supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the DOD, loosely affiliated with UCSF. In 1972 he was appointed Professor of Psychology at UCSF.

His interests have focused on two separate but related topics. He originally focused on ‘nonverbal’ behavior, and by the mid-60’s concentrated on the expression and physiology of emotion. His second interest is interpersonal deception.

Articles reporting on Dr. Ekman's work have appeared in Time Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Psychology Today, The New Yorker and others, both American and foreign. Numerous articles about his work have also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and other national newspapers.

He has appeared on 48 Hours, Dateline, Good Morning America, 20/20, Larry King, Oprah, Johnny Carson and many other TV programs. He has also been featured on various public television programs such as News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and Bill Moyers' The Truth About Lying.

Ekman is co-author of Emotion in the Human Face (1971), Unmasking the Face (1975), Facial Action Coding System (1978), editor of Darwin and Facial Expression (1973), co-editor of Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research (1982), Approaches to Emotion (1984), The Nature of Emotion (1994), What the Face Reveals (1997), and author of Face of Man (1980), Telling Lies (1985, paperback, 1986, second edition, 1992, third edition, 2001,fourth edition,2009 with new chapter), Why Kids Lie (1989, paperback 1991), and Emotions Revealed, (2003, ). And co-authored the book Emotional Awareness, (2008) with the Dalai Lama.He is the editor of the third edition of Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1998). He has published more than 100 articles.

Ekman received honorary degrees from the University of Chicago and Geneva University, was named one of the 100 most influential psychologists of the 20th century by the American Psychological Association, and was selected by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2009. In addition to consulting with government, researching deadly intent, developing and marketing online training on deception, he is deeply involved in the TV program Lie To Me which is based on his research on deception.

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