Elizabeth Weingarten

Head of Behavioral Science Insights, Torch

Elizabeth Weingarten is the Head of Behavioral Science Insights for Torch. In this capacity, she works with the behavioral science team to identify and share with broad audiences what Torch is learning about the science of leadership development.

Prior to Torch, Elizabeth was managing editor of Behavioral Scientist magazine, worked at the behavioral science design firm ideas42, directed the Global Gender Parity Initiative at the think tank New America and was a senior fellow in its Better Life Lab. She has also worked on the editorial staffs of Slate, The Atlantic, and Qatar Today Magazine. She graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Jamil Zaki, Ph.D

AUTHOR, The War for Kindness

Jamil Zaki is a tenured associate professor of psychology at Stanford University. His research spans a number of domains, including social influence, prosocial behavior, and especially empathy (see ssnl.stanford.edu for details). He has pioneered a new perspective on empathy as a learnable skill, and much of his work focuses on training individuals, groups, and organizations to empathize more effectively. More recently. Dr. Zaki has become interested in understanding and combatting cynicism in our culture, workplaces, and lives.

Dr. Zaki received his BA in cognitive neuroscience from Boston University and his PhD in psychology from Columbia University, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Harvard Center for Brain Science. He has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles and received research and teaching awards from the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, the Society for Neuroscience, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, Harvard University, and Stanford University. In 2019 he was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the US Governments highest honor for researchers at his career stage.

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Zaki is active in outreach and public communication of science. He has written for outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Business Review, and The New Yorker. In 2019, he published his first book, The War for Kindness, which NPR called a "wide-ranging, practical guide to making the world better." His TED Talk, "How to escape the cynicism trap," was published in December of 2021 and has been viewed over 750,000 times. He is now at work on a book about anti-cynicism.