Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the C.S. and D.J. Davidson Professor of Psychology at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University and Director of the Quality of Life Research Center. He is also emeritus professor of human development at the University of Chicago, where he chaired the department of psychology.

His life's work has been to study what makes people truly happy. Drawing upon years of systematic research, he invented the concept of "flow" as a metaphorical description of the rare mental state associated with feelings of optimal satisfaction and fulfillment. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi's analysis of the internal and external conditions giving rise to "flow" show that it is almost always linked to circumstances of high challenge when personal skills are used to the utmost.

The Hungarian-born social scientist, a graduate of the classical gymnasium, "Torquato Tasso," in Rome, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago and earned a Ph.D. in psychology there in 1965. After teaching in the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College, he returned to Chicago in 1970 and was appointed a full professor in 1982, a position he held until 1999. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, the University of Illinois, the University of Milan, the University of Alberta, Escola Paulista de Medecina in São Paulo, Brazil, Duquesne University, the University of Maine, the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, and the British Psychological Society. His research has been supported by the United States Public Health Service, the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Sloan Foundation, the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.

A former resident scholar at the Rockefeller Center at Bellagio, resident fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, and senior Fullbright Fellow in Brazil and New Zealand, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi holds honorary doctor of science degrees from Lake Forest College, Colorado College, and doctor of fine arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Psychological Society, the National Academy of Education, and the National Academy of Leisure Studies, and a foreign member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

In addition to the Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990), which has been translated into fifteen languages, he is the author of thirteen other books and more than 210 research articles.