Bryce Fuemmeler studies the science of human flourishing. He is a Senior Researcher at Vanderbilt University, where he directs Dr. Arthur C. Brooks' research portfolio, and he previously spent four years leading the research team at Harvard's Leadership & Happiness Laboratory.
He speaks to universities, companies, and public institutions about what actually makes a good life, and what the evidence says about getting there.
I have spent my career studying the science of human happiness, which means I have spent decades around some of the smartest minds on the planet. Bryce is one of the few I trust to carry this vital work forward in my stead.
For years, he ran the research team at my lab at Harvard, and he now directs my entire research portfolio at Vanderbilt. This means he doesn't just understand my conclusions. He knows how the science is built, where it is rock-solid, and where it is still an open question. Bryce has been absolutely instrumental in helping me research and validate all of my public facing work, from my books and weekly columns to our deepest quantitative surveys.
But what truly sets Bryce apart is that he is a serious researcher in his own right. His emerging work on civic life and the loneliness of our modern public square is clear-eyed and novel. At a time when our culture feels increasingly fractured and soul-sick, Bryce is doing the hard work to understand why we have grown so divided, and, more importantly, how we might bring ourselves back together.
If you have the chance to bring Bryce to your stage, take it. He is a brilliant scholar, an engaging communicator, and a dear friend.
— Arthur
Happiness and meaning. What happiness really is and why it isn't a feeling, the search for meaning, and the worldly idols (money, power, pleasure, fame) that promise fulfillment and fail to deliver it.
Relationships and emotional life. Love and the people who shape a good life, emotional self-management, and how to handle the inner weather most of us are never taught to read.
Civic life and the problem of polarization. Drawing on his own research, Bryce examines why public life has grown so contemptuous and what the science of relationships tells us about bridging divides.
University of Oxford (Oxford Union Chamber and Saïd Business School)
Harvard University (China Symposium and Graduate School of Education)
Connecticut Supreme Court and Judicial Branch
Babson College, The Conscious Future Society Conference
Tiger 21 (Tampa Chapter)
In this Oxford Union chamber speech on June 3, 2026, Bryce Fuemmeler argues that our culture is gripped by a crisis of meaning.
An Oxford alumnus himself, Bryce explores why today’s young adults are gripped by a sense of meaninglessness. Using an interdisciplinary approach across science and ancient wisdom, he makes the case that a mysterious but forgotten idea—that is, how transcending ourselves helps us to know ourselves—is the way individuals can reduce the terrible problems of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and polarization. This idea, in turn, will work to revivify life’s meaning.
