Robin Stern Keynote Speaker

Licensed psychoanalyst, author, and educator
Co-founder & Senior Advisor to the Director, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence
Founding member of The School at Columbia University

Robin Stern's Biography

Robin Stern, Ph.D., is a licensed psychoanalyst, educator, author, and commentator. As a renowned expert in gaslight manipulation, emotional intelligence and women in leadership, her work bridges the gap between theory and the public square.

She co-founded the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence with Marc Brackett and currently serves as the senior advisor to the director. Through her work with Yale, she co-developed RULER(an acronym for the five key emotion skills of recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions) an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning that has been adopted by over 5,000 schools across the United States and in 27 other countries, and the app HowWeFeel, designed to teach the language of emotions and enhance well-being. She has created numerous trauma-informed courses which are available to educators.

Robin is the author of The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life, the critically acclaimed book published in 2007. A second edition of the book was released in 2018 which included the role of gaslighting in politics. In 2023, the workbook version The Gaslight Effect Recovery Guide, was published to help those navigating gaslighting relationships find their road to recovery. She launched The Gaslight Effect Podcast. in 2022. As the host, she and her guests explore the phenomena of gaslighting from relationships, to cults, to culture.

Robin is a founding member of The School at Columbia University where she served as emotional intelligence coach and consultant for faculty for several years. She is a co-founder of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, a founding member of the Summer Principals Academy at Teachers College, and co-creator of the inaugural course in Self Awareness and Emotional Intelligence. She continues to help educational leaders enhance their emotional intelligence skills through training of her co-created STAR Factor Coaching model. The model has been adapted widely in New York City schools, with more than five hundred superintendents and principals coached under the program. In 2023, she co-authored Emotional Intelligence for School Leaders published by Harvard Education Press.

Robin is a regular consultant and keynote speaker with companies (Meta, Lancôme, Google, Samsung, Time Inc.) and hospitals (Yale New Haven Hospital, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital) on the application of emotional intelligence in management and leadership. She is the co-founder of Oji Life Lab, a digital emotional intelligence learning system for businesses and organizations that can be personalized for teams and industry experts. She also serves on the advisory board for organizations including: Crisis Text Line (where she wrote an early training for their crisis counselors), Think Equal, Give us the Floor and The International Society for Emotional Intelligence.

A frequent writer and commentator, she has been featured in many popular media outlets including Washington Post, Psychology Today, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company.

In 2014-15 Robin was a fellow in the Yale Public Voices Fellowship.

Robin continues to cultivate awareness on topics such as gaslighting, building skills of emotional intelligence and resilience and other provocative initiatives through her work over the years with nonprofits including: The Garrison Institute, Project Rebirth, and as an Ambassador for Peace for the UN Women for Peace Association. In 2023, she accepted a new appointment as Ambassador for the University of Peace, permanent mission to the United Nations.

What to Know About ‘The Gaslight Effect’

As a worldwide expert on the issue of gaslighting, Dr. Robin Stern will help shed light on 'The Gaslight Effect' and its destructive impact. She will offer an intimate look at this covert form of manipulation including the stages of gaslighting, the various types of gaslighters and will offer actionable strategies to combat this abuse

What Every Citizen Needs To Know

Gaslighting is a real concern in public debates. It can play to someone’s worst fears and most anxious thoughts, and when a person you have chosen to trust and respect speaks with certainty, it can be extremely difficult not to believe them. We see it when politicians deny saying things that have been taped, when they deny actions others witnessed or words that were said by others, when they make up their own reality and insist it is based on facts, even though experts know it’s not. Dr. Robin Stern will share how we can use our critical faculties to resist this psychological manipulation.

Inside Cults: Exploring The Darkest Side Of Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation used to distort and undermine someone’s reality, fostering deep-seated confusion and self-doubt. Cult leaders masterfully use the technique of gaslighting as a way to indoctrinate their targets and create an environment of absolute control. Dr. Robin Stern unpacks lessons learned from her conversations with Tasha Adams (ex-wife of Proud Boy leader Stewart Rhodes), Sarah Edmondson (author of Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life), and Daniel Levin (author of Slonim Woods 9, who wrote of his time with and escape from Sarah Lawrence Cult). Dr. Stern will share how to identify gaslighting tactics used on cult victims, how to protect someone from getting more deeply involved, and ultimately how to break free.

How To Be An Emotionally Intelligent Leader: Creating A Psychologically Safe And Empowered Workplace

Emotionally intelligent leaders create psychologically safe, productive and innovative workplaces. In these environments employees feel that they matter, they are valued and are more likely to work to their fullest potential. Drawing upon her years of experience teaching at The Yale School of Management, speaking and consulting at companies such as Time, Inc., Google, UBS, and Yale New Haven Hospitals, Dr. Stern explores the critical role emotion skills and attitudes play in increasing positive climates. Participants will have the opportunity to think deeply about the behaviors and characteristics they can expect to see in emotionally intelligent leaders and how they can cultivate the characteristics for themselves.

Social & Emotional Learning And The Dangers Of Digital Technology

Social and emotional learning and digital technology have co-existed as cultural influences for over two decades. At the same time that experts in social and emotional learning were teaching empathy and the importance of connecting with others, social media was flourishing with opportunities for bullying and hate mongering. Dr. Robin Stern explains how the promises and perils of digital technology have changed the way our children are growing up and learning to socialize, forever. As a long time consultant with Facebook/Meta she will invite us to think together about who is accountable and what can be done to reap the benefits digital tech has to offer, and strengthen, rather than devastate the lessons of social and emotional learning for young people.

Gaslight Proof Your Organization: Enhance Professional Growth & Jumpstart Innovation Through Emotional Intelligence

Dr. Robin Stern offers a transformative and forward-looking conversation about emotionally intelligent organizations. She will illuminate the subtle, yet destructive pattern of gaslighting which can squash psychological safety, impede creativity, and lead to interference with productivity and growth. Through her teaching at Yale School of Management and speaking and consulting at companies such as Time, Inc., Google, UBS, and Yale New Haven Hospitals, Dr. Stern explains how developing emotionally intelligent leadership and creating a gaslight-proof work culture can pivot your organization to an environment of professional trust, creativity, and innovation.