Recently I spoke with Dr. Tchiki Davis who graduated from Berkeley in 2015. She is one of many students I've met recently who are trying to commercialize their graduate research.
Tell me about what are you doing.
I am a happiness R&D consultant. I work with companies to develop and assess products that improve well-being and happiness for their clients or employees. I develop products, courses, and tools that enhance well-being, I conduct studies to assess product’s impact on happiness and I create reports to share results with stakeholders.
Why is this important?
Improved well-being is a prerequisite for just about every other business objective - for example, workplace satisfaction, student academic performance, and reduced health-care costs. To meet these objectives, I help companies build and assess scientifically-sound programs and applications to improve well-being.
How did you start your consulting?
I am an entrepreneur at heart and I have always been interested in developing applied well-being interventions. In my 3rd year in grad school I started working on a side project to translate what I had learned in my PhD program into online tools for individuals. By my 4th year, I founded my company and started seeking grants. In my 5th year I pivoted the company to focus primarily on consulting with organizations to build well-being tools. That's my main focus now.
How does this relate to your graduate work?
My thesis and dissertation work looked at the relationships between emotional processes and mental-health. Part of what I did was to create surveys measuring discrete emotional processes, evaluate the effectiveness of well-being interventions, and test whether short online activities immediately improved cognitive and emotional processing. I was able to use these experiences to start advising clients on research methods and intervention development in the field of emotion and well-being.
What are some of the engagements you've worked on?
A current project involves designing a tool to help universities affordably and easily provide customized happiness skill-building activities to their students. In another project, I am creating scientifically-supported tools to help managers improve employee well-being. I also designed the curriculum for a happiness practitioner course. This 'train-the-trainer' course helps people learn how to teach the science of happiness to their K-12 students.
You can see a list of my projects at http://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/projects.html.
What are your plans for the future?
I am currently working full-time contracting and consulting for a handful of organizations who need help developing and testing online well-being products. To build my business, I am now focusing on doing more marketing and branding. To read more about the types of projects I work on, checkout my posts on LinkedIn.
{If you are a grad student or postdoc trying to commercialize your research send me a note about yourself using the Contact Form and perhaps we can arrange an interview.}
