Paul Ekman

Life & Legacy

Paul Ekman (February 15, 1934 – November 17, 2025) was an American psychologist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who was a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He was ranked 59th out of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century in 2002 by the Review of General Psychology.
His empirical and theoretical work helped to restart the study of emotion and non-verbal communication in the field of psychology, and introduced new quantitative frameworks which researchers could use to do so. He also carried out important early work on the physiology of emotions.