James C. Kaufman

James C. Kaufman is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. He is the author/editor of more than 50 books, which include Creativity 101 and the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. He has also written more than 400 papers, which include theoretical contributions such as the Four-C Model of Creativity (with Ronald Beghetto) and empirical work, such as the study that spawned the “Sylvia Plath Effect.” His current research interests are creativity as it relates to meaning, equity, and other positive constructs, as well as creativity assessment.

Kaufman is a past president of Division 10 (Society for Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, & the Arts) of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the chair of the Media Watch Committee for Division 46 (Society for Media Psychology and Technology). His awards include Mensa’s research award, the Torrance Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, and APA’s Berlyne, Arnheim, and Farnsworth awards. He co-founded two major journals (Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts and Psychology of Popular Media Culture).

Kaufman has tested Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s creativity on CNN, appeared in the hit Australian show Redesign Your Brain, and narrated the comic book documentary Independents. He wrote the book and lyrics to Discovering Magenta, which had its NYC premiere in 2015, and co-authored a book on bad baseball pitchers with his father. He lives in Glastonbury, Connecticut, with his wife, two sons, two dogs, and other miscellaneous pets.