Resiliency & Respect Series
In a fast-paced, ever-changing, and often uncertain world, it’s important that each of us has the skills we need to successfully navigate our environment, including tools for stress management and building capacity to support our well-being.
In partnership with the Office of Organizational Stewardship and the Lab Directorate, Berkeley Lab is proud to launch a series of speakers and workshops designed to help all of us cultivate greater resiliency and enhance collaboration. The “Resiliency and Respect” series will introduce strategies and frameworks for building healthier brains, understanding and adapting to rapid societal changes, and leveraging respect and trust to build stronger teams.
Come and learn more about these topics and their connection to a growth mindset, enabling the Lab community to further advance our scientific mission.
When You Can't Avoid or Reduce Stress, What Strategies Work to Maintain Hope, Meaning, and Well-Being?
Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Time: 10 - 11 am PT
Location: Building 50 Auditorium
or join virtually at Streaming.lbl.gov
Add the event to your calendar
We’ve been told to avoid stress, and if you can’t do that, to reduce stress, and when that’s not possible, to embrace stress. But what do you do when the stressors in your life, and in the world, overwhelm your usual coping strategies?
Guest speaker Kelly McGonigal, PhD, will share insights from the emerging field of global research on meaning-centered coping. This talk will explore the sources of meaning that are most important and available in times of significant stress, including when events that threaten your sense of meaning and control. We will consider what existential courage looks like on day-to-day basis, and how to find meaning, hope, and connection through choices that reflect your values, affirm your humanity, and make a difference.
Bio: Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University. As a pioneer in the field of "science-help," her mission is to translate insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support personal well-being and strengthen communities. She is the best-selling author of The Willpower Instinct, The Upside of Stress, and The Joy of Movement. Through the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism, she helped create the Stanford Compassion Cultivation Training, a program now taught around the world that helps individuals strengthen their empathy, compassion, and self-compassion. She enjoys sharing psychological science with the public, and has served as the psychology consultant for The New York Times Education Initiative, hosted interviews with scientists and authors for Public Radio’s City Arts & Lectures, and developed educational content for a wide range of apps and media platforms. You might also know her from her TED talk, "How to Make Stress Your Friend," which is one of the most viewed TED talks of all time, with over 30 million views.
Her latest book, The Joy of Movement: How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage, is now available.
Find her at: www.kellymcgonigal.com
Past Events
How Well-Being and Community Connections Generate Organizational Success
Date: Monday, November 4, 2024
Time: Noon - 1 pm PT
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The U.S. Surgeon General described our society’s “epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” and how many of us feel less connected despite our deep desire to feel a sense of belonging. Guest speaker Dr. Christine Porath will discuss how important thriving communities are to our well-being and the success of organizations, and what steps we can take to create them. The rise of technology and modern workplace practices have led people to feel more isolated, even as we remain constantly contactable. And as our human interactions have decreased, so too have our happiness levels, resulting in a mental health crisis and less productive organizations. Dr. Porath will share ways to unite and strengthen our communities, with a focus on strategies to empower and uplift ourselves and others and build greater resilience.
Bio: Christine Porath is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. She’s the author of Mastering Community: How Coming Together Moves People from Surviving to Thriving, and Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace and co-author of The Cost of Bad Behavior. Christine is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and has written articles for New York Times, Wall Street Journal, McKinsey Quarterly, and Washington Post. She frequently delivers talks and has taught in various Executive programs at Harvard, Georgetown, and USC. Prior to her position at UNC, she was a faculty member at Georgetown, and the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.
Christine’s work has been featured worldwide in over 1500 television, radio and print outlets. It has appeared on 20/20, Today, FoxNews, CNN, BBC, NBC, msnbc, CBS, ABC, and NPR. It has also been included in Time, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Fortune, Forbes, NY Times, The Washington Post, and L.A. Times.
Building Resiliency: Brain Health and Nutrition
Date: Thursday, September 5, 2024
Time: 10 - 11 am PT
Zoom link: streaming.lbl.gov
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Mental health expert Kimberley Wilson is the first speaker in our Resiliency and Respect series. Wilson will discuss how food and lifestyle can profoundly affect our brain health, mood, and behavior. She’ll focus on the relationship between nutrition and our ability to deal effectively with stress. She’ll offer practical advice on how to build a resilient, healthy brain, and even protect against such diseases as depression and dementia.
Bio: Kimberley Wilson is a Chartered Psychologist, with a master’s degree in nutrition. She’s the author of How to Build a Healthy Brain (2020) and Unprocessed: How the Food We Eat is Fuelling Our Mental Health Crisis (2023). Wilson has a private practice in central London. A former Governor of the Tavistock & Portman NHS Mental Health Trust, Kimberley led the therapy service at HMP & YOI Holloway, which at the time was Europe’s largest women’s prison.
Kimberley believes the way we think about mental health – as separate from physical health – is flawed. Her philosophy of Whole Body Mental Health is a comprehensive approach to mental health care; integrating evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle factors with psychological therapy with an emphasis on nutrition and the brain.
Passionate about the power of psychology to transform lives, Kimberley is committed to demystifying the theories and putting the information into the hands of the people who need it through social media, podcasts, television appearances, live events, and regular appearances on expert panels.
Nutritious Lunches & Side Dishes “No Cook” Cooking Demonstration
Date: Wednesday, September 18, 2024 (add it to your calendar)
Time: 12 - 1 pm PT
Hybrid Event:
Building 91, Room 310
Join us on Zoom: streaming.lbl.gov
In person space is limited and registration is required: Cooking Demonstration Sign Up Form
As a follow up to Kimberley Wilson's talk on nutrition for brain health, this “no cook” cooking demonstration will give you quick, inexpensive, and easy ideas for a nutritious lunch or side course. The demonstration will be run by Kim Guess, RD, the dietician for UC Berkeley's Wellness Program. Samples will be available! Please RSVP to join us for this hybrid event.
Bio: Kim Guess, RD, Wellness Program Dietitian, joined UC Berkeley Health Services in 2014 and is responsible for nutrition and wellness workshops, behavior change programs, and the Food and Beverage Choices Policy. She received her BS in Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise from Virginia Tech and completed her dietetic internship at Cal State Long Beach. In addition to her passion for cooking and sustainability, she enjoys soccer, martial arts, tennis, hiking, and camping. Kim is also a certified self-defense instructor and ALICE instructor.
Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense
Date: Wednesday, October 2, 2024
Time: 11 am - 12 pm PT
Location: Building 50 Auditorium
Watch the recording of the event
Nobel Laureate Saul Perlmutter will join us in person to share perspectives from his latest book, co-authored with a psychologist and a philosopher. “Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense” has been hailed as a “a roadmap for making more effective decisions in an increasingly complex and noisy world.” Director Witherell will then join Saul on stage for an informal discussion of these ideas and how they are relevant to the Lab community.
Bio: Saul Perlmutter is a 2011 Nobel Laureate, sharing the prize in Physics for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe. He is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Franklin W. and Karen Weber Dabby Chair, and a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is the leader of the international Supernova Cosmology Project, and director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science, and executive director of the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics. His undergraduate degree was from Harvard and his PhD from UC Berkeley. In addition to other awards and honors, he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Perlmutter has also written popular articles and has appeared in numerous PBS, Discovery Channel, and BBC documentaries. His interest in teaching scientific-style critical thinking for scientists and non-scientists alike led to Berkeley courses on Sense and Sensibility and Science and Physics & Music.
How Respect and Trust Build Collaboration and Drive Team Effectiveness
Date: Thursday, October 10, 2024
Time: 12 noon - 1 p.m.
Workplace civility resources from Dr. Porath
Incivility can fracture a team, splintering members’ sense of psychological safety and hampering team effectiveness. Guest speaker Dr. Christine Porath will discuss how civility and trust can improve performance and enhance team science: by reciprocating respectful actions, we can create a more inclusive climate, and enable greater trust and collaboration. She will discuss the importance of self-awareness and share recommendations and skills for improving communication across differences. Dr. Porath will also provide insights on what we can do to boost our effectiveness in helping to create a thriving laboratory environment grounded in our stewardship values: trust, respect, team science, service, and innovation.
Dr. Porath will give a second talk on How Well-Being and Community Connections Generate Organizational Success on November 4th. See below for more information.
Bio: Christine Porath is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. She’s the author of Mastering Community: How Coming Together Moves People from Surviving to Thriving, and Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace and co-author of The Cost of Bad Behavior. Christine is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and has written articles for New York Times, Wall Street Journal, McKinsey Quarterly, and Washington Post. She frequently delivers talks and has taught in various Executive programs at Harvard, Georgetown, and USC. Prior to her position at UNC, she was a faculty member at Georgetown, and the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.
Christine’s work has been featured worldwide in over 1500 television, radio and print outlets. It has appeared on 20/20, Today, FoxNews, CNN, BBC, NBC, msnbc, CBS, ABC, and NPR. It has also been included in Time, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Fortune, Forbes, NY Times, The Washington Post, and L.A. Times.
Mentorship, Well-being, and Professional Development in Times of Societal Change and Institutional Disruptions
Host: National Academies Science, Engineering & Medicine, Committee on Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine
Date: October 28 - 29
Time: 9 am - 2 pm PT/12 noon - 5 pm ET
Online Registration
Join the National Academies Science, Engineering & Medicine, Committee on Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine for the third and final workshop with the Roundtable on Mentorship, Well-being, and Professional Development!
Critical supports and resources within the STEMM research ecosystem are shifting in reaction to rapid changes in institutional, regional, and national environments. In addition, decisions made by external groups and individuals can have a dramatic and profound influence on the well-being, professional development, and interpersonal and mentoring relationships of graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty. Building upon the conversations held during the first two Roundtable workshops, the goal of this third public workshop is to apply a systemic lens to explore the ways in which individuals, departments and offices, and institutions are addressing and navigating these common challenges.