Institute Seminar on What makes us happy? Unanswered questions

Abstract of the Talk:

Of late, biologists, economists, behavioral scientists, and computational neuroscientists have made some effort to understand the nature, process and antecedents of happiness. In fact, our fascination of learning more about stress and negative aspects of mental state has led to common misconceptions related to ‘happiness’. Though the subject matter does not fall under the science of exactitude, and has some bearing of belief and faith, the science of happiness has a lot to offer in our day-to-day life, especially in emotional and cognitive spheres of our engagements. The talk will focus on unanswered questions about happiness, and the science behind happiness.

Biography:

Dr. Manas K Mandal is currently serving as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur. He was formerly a Distinguished Scientist and Director-General - Life sciences in DRDO [2013-2016]. Prior to this, he was Chief Controller R&D (Life Sciences), DRDO. He was also the Director, Defense Institute of Psychological Research for about nine years. He holds a Ph.D. degree from Calcutta University and started his career as a Lecturer at Banaras Hindu University in 1983.

Dr. Mandal completed his post-doctoral research at Delaware University as Fulbright Fellow, USA in 1986-87, and at Waterloo University as an International Scientific Exchange Awardee, Canada in 1993-94. Dr. Mandal was a Professor of Psychology at the Department of HSS, IIT-Kharagpur, prior to joining DRDO in 2004. He was also a Visiting Professor at Kyushu University in Japan in 1997 & 2010-11. During 2003, he was a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University, USA.

Dr. Mandal received various research fellowships and awards at national & international levels, such as, Indo-Canadian Shastri fellowship; Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada award; Fulbright fellowship, USA; Seymour Kety award, USA; Career Award, U.G.C.; Young Scientist Award, ISCA; National Association of Medical Sciences Award; DRDO Spin-off Technology Award, etc. In 2005, Dr. Mandal and his team was given away 'Agni Award for Excellence in self-reliance' for the contribution towards the development of 'Computerized Pilot Selection System' for Air Force . For his overall contribution to psychological sciences, he was elected as the Fellow of National Association of Psychology in India in 2012; and for his contribution to Military Psychology, he was given away the 'Scientist of the Year' award by the Prime Minister of India in 2006 (DRDO).

Dr. Mandal specializes in the areas of Clinical Neuropsychology and Cognitive Sciences. He has to his credit 12 books, over 85 research papers in international and 20 national journals of high impact factors. These researches are cited in more than 300 international journals and books with over 1500 international citations.