Jay Phelan

Jay Phelan is a biology professor at UCLA. He received his PhD in biology from Harvard and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Yale and UCLA. His main area of research is evolutionary genetics and aging. Jay’s research has been featured on, among others, Talk of the Nation and the BBC, as well as seeing his work covered in several major magazines and newspapers.

Jay is passionate about equipping students with the skills they need to succeed, in college and beyond. As a speaker he shares the experience he has garnered from decades of coaching struggling, unfocused students as well as award-winning college instructors and researchers. He is the author of several books, the most of recent of which is the The Secret Syllabus: A Guide to the Unwritten Rules of College Success (forthcoming from Princeton University Press). You can watch his TEDxUCLA talk on finding – and creating - happiness here.