Author's Posts
Oct 25, 2025
Years ago a colleague invited me to give a lecture on leadership to police officers who were on their way to become senior members of their departments, part of a …
Paul J. Zak, PhD
Paul J. Zak is a Professor at Claremont Graduate University and is ranked in the top 0.3% of most cited scientists with over 200 published papers and more than 20,000 citations to his research. Zak’s two decades of research have taken him from the Pentagon to Fortune 50 boardrooms to the rainforest of Papua New Guinea. Along the way he helped start a number of interdisciplinary fields including neuroeconomics, neuromanagement, and neuromarketing. He has written three general audience books and is a regular TED speaker.
His latest book, Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and Source of Happiness (2022), identifies the neurologic basis for extraordinary experiences and uses 50,000 brain measurements to show readers how to create high-impact marketing, entertainment, training, customer experiences, and employee experiences. The book shows that extraordinary experiences drive up customer lifetime value and provide the neurologic foundation for increased individual happiness.
Zak’s other books are Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High Performance Companies (2017) and The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity (2012). Trust Factor applies neuroscience to efficiently build high-performance organizations by creating a culture of trust. The Moral Molecule received much attention for Zak’s discovery of the key role played by the neurochemical oxytocin to explain virtuous behaviors and happiness.
Zak delivered a TED Talk titled “Trust, Morality—and Oxytocin?” in 2011 that has been viewed two million times. He also co-founded the first neuroscience-as-a-service (NaaS) company, Immersion Neuroscience.
After receiving his BA in mathematics and economics from San Diego State University, Zak completed his doctorate in economics at the University of Pennsylvania and completed post-doctoral training in neuroimaging at Harvard University. Zak has taught at Caltech, Arizona State University, UC Riverside, and USC Law. At CGU, Zak directs the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies.