2023 Distinguished Alumni Award Presented to Helen Fisher ’63, PhD
Ali Schwartz ’10
Helen Fisher ’63, PhD, biological anthropologist, is a Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and Chief Science Advisor to Match.com. Using fMRI techniques, Helen studies the brain systems associated with romantic love, attachment, rejection, sex drive, love addiction, and partnership happiness. She discusses courtship in the digital age based on her dataset of 60,000 single Americans as well as her data from anthropology and neuroscience. She is the author of six internationally best-selling books on the science of romantic love, attachment, adultery, divorce, and the evolution and future of human family life. Dr. Fisher is currently studying the biological basis of personality and is a pioneer in examining the neurochemistry of team building, selling, innovation, and leadership—based on fMRI scans and data collected from her questionnaire, the Fisher Temperament Inventory, now taken by more than 15 million people in 40 countries. She is a TED All-Star with over 21 million views of her TED talks, appears regularly on national and international TV, radio, print, and podcasts, and was named one of the “Fifteen Most Amazing Women in Science” in 2015 by Business Insider. Helen holds a B.A. from New York University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Physical Anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
The Shipley School is a private, coeducational day school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students, located in Bryn Mawr, PA. Through our commitment to educational excellence, we develop within each student a love of learning and a desire for compassionate participation in the world.