(TOMS RIVER, NJ) -- The Ocean County College Foundation's acclaimed Blauvelt Speaker Series continues on Wednesday, October 9, 2024 with a visit from Emiliana Simon-Thomas to the Grunin Center for the Arts. She is the science director at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center (GGSC). The event begins at 11:00am.

Emiliana Simon-Thomas runs the GGSC’s campus research fellowship programs and directs key initiatives like Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude and Person-Activity Fit for Online Happiness Practices. She also co-teaches both the Science of Happiness and the Science of Happiness at Work Professional Certificate Series courses.

Alongside her academic and popular publications, Emiliana co-edited the transdisciplinary Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science, and serves as the executive director of the UC Berkeley-UCSF-Harvard branch of the NIH funded Science of Emotional Well-being Network. Emiliana also advises organizations – from a climate, product, and policy perspective – on why and how to promote well-being. Sharing practical strategies that can be implemented across multiple contexts and settings, Emiliana offers actionable insights that can measurably improve three key drivers of happiness: social connection, positive emotion, and resilience to stress.

The public event is open to all and admission is free. Advanced registration is required and can be done here. A Q&A for OCC students, faculty, and staff will take place following the public event. Registration with an OCC email address is required for this session. Grunin Center for the Arts is located on College Drive, in Toms River, New Jersey.

The Blauvelt Speaker Series is funded in part by the generosity of the late Bradford Thomas & Eleanor G. Blauvelt and the Wintrode Family Foundation. This year’s 2024-2025 additional sponsors include Carluccio, Leone, Dimon, Doyle & Sacks, LLC, Arlene and Frank Dupignac, Jr., Georgian Court University, Kean Ocean, Stella and Marshall Kern, Kiwanis of Greater Toms River, Leone & Daughters, New Jersey Natural Gas and OCVTS.

Since 1965, the Ocean County College Foundation has provided support for thousands of deserving students in our community, awarding over $21 million in direct scholarship and special program support. Thanks to the generosity of their donors, they are able to continue to provide additional assistance across their college community in truly impactful ways, including the funding for the Helping Hands Food Pantry, the Blauvelt Speaker Series, the Grunin Center for the Arts, the Global Travel Experience, Veterans Affairs, the Novins Planetarium, the Citta Sailing Center, Viking Athletics, and many more college and student-led initiatives.