Salovey — who had served as the provost of Yale University from 2008 to 2013 — replaced Rick Levin as the 23rd president of the University. As provost, Salovey facilitated strategic planning and initiatives such as: enhancing career development and mentoring opportunities for all Yale faculty members; promoting faculty diversity; creating the Office of Academic Integrity; developing the West Campus; and overseeing the University’s budget during the global financial crisis.

Other leadership roles at Yale have included: chair of the Department of Psychology from 2000 to 2003; dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and 2004; and dean of Yale College from 2004 to 2008. He currently holds secondary faculty appointments in the Schools of Management and Public Health, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and the Sociology Department.

Salovey has authored or edited more than dozen books translated into 11 languages and published hundreds of journal articles and essays, focused primarily on human emotion and health behavior. With John D. Mayer, he developed a broad framework called “Emotional Intelligence,” the theory that just as people have a wide range of intellectual abilities, they also have a wide range of measurable emotional skills that profoundly affect their thinking and action.

In addition to teaching and mentoring scores of graduate students, Salovey has won both the William Clyde DeVane Medal for Distinguished Scholarship and Teaching in Yale College and the Lex Hixon ’63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Pretoria in South Africa and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2013.

Every place where Salovey has lived not only has a nearby Promise program, they are all in attendance at PromiseNet. He spent his early years in North Jersey, which is represented by the new Cooperman College Scholars. He first attended high school in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., which is represented by Say Yes To Education — Buffalo. His family moved to Los Angeles, where he completed high school and which is represented by the Fulfillment Fund. He was an undergraduate at Stanford University, which is where the East Bay College Fund supports students. And now, as President at Yale University, he is the Chairman of the Board for New Haven Promise.