Presented By: Department of Psychology
Evolution in the Public Eye Award and Lecture: What Are Emotions, How Do They Work, and Why Are They Like That?
Laith Al-Shawaf, Professor of Psychology and President’s Teaching Scholar, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
Join the University of Michigan's Evolution & Human Adaptation Program for the 2026 Evolution in the Public Eye Award celebration. This award recognizes individuals who share evidence-based science and challenge misinformation, helping us all better understand the role of evolution in shaping the mind. The winner will deliver an address on their work, highlighting efforts to improve scholarly and public dialogue.
Lecture summary: Emotions are among the most familiar and ubiquitous parts of the human experience — and among the most puzzling. How do emotions work? Why do they work that way? And why do we have them at all? Drawing on an evolutionary perspective, we’ll examine fear, disgust, shame, romantic love, and other emotions: how they coordinate distinct changes across the body, brain, and mind; how different emotions evolved to solve different problems; and how their structure reflects the problems they evolved to solve. But this perspective also raises a puzzle: if emotions are evolved systems that help us navigate important life challenges, why do they sometimes lead us astray? Grasping the adaptive logic of emotion helps resolve this puzzle and gives us a deeper and more accurate understanding of our emotions. The result is an evolutionarily grounded framework for thinking about emotion that goes beyond dichotomizing emotions as good or bad, rational or irrational, and provides a new way of making sense of our emotional lives.
About the award recipient and speaker: Dr. Laith Al-Shawaf is a research psychologist, writer, and professor at the University of Colorado. His research focuses on emotions, cognition, and personality, with an emphasis on understanding the structure and function of the human mind from an evolutionary perspective. He is the primary editor and curator of The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions, a 70-chapter volume published in 2024.
Professor Al-Shawaf is a President’s Teaching Scholar, a lifetime designation across the University of Colorado system, and the recipient of numerous research and teaching awards, including the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, the Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions and the Fellow Award from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, and multiple teaching and research honors from the University of Colorado. He is the recipient of the 2026 Evolution in the Public Eye Award for excellence in communicating evolutionary science to the public.
In addition to his scholarly work, he writes popular science essays for general audiences and has appeared on a variety of science podcasts and other media platforms. His popular science writing has been translated into multiple languages.
Lecture summary: Emotions are among the most familiar and ubiquitous parts of the human experience — and among the most puzzling. How do emotions work? Why do they work that way? And why do we have them at all? Drawing on an evolutionary perspective, we’ll examine fear, disgust, shame, romantic love, and other emotions: how they coordinate distinct changes across the body, brain, and mind; how different emotions evolved to solve different problems; and how their structure reflects the problems they evolved to solve. But this perspective also raises a puzzle: if emotions are evolved systems that help us navigate important life challenges, why do they sometimes lead us astray? Grasping the adaptive logic of emotion helps resolve this puzzle and gives us a deeper and more accurate understanding of our emotions. The result is an evolutionarily grounded framework for thinking about emotion that goes beyond dichotomizing emotions as good or bad, rational or irrational, and provides a new way of making sense of our emotional lives.
About the award recipient and speaker: Dr. Laith Al-Shawaf is a research psychologist, writer, and professor at the University of Colorado. His research focuses on emotions, cognition, and personality, with an emphasis on understanding the structure and function of the human mind from an evolutionary perspective. He is the primary editor and curator of The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions, a 70-chapter volume published in 2024.
Professor Al-Shawaf is a President’s Teaching Scholar, a lifetime designation across the University of Colorado system, and the recipient of numerous research and teaching awards, including the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, the Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions and the Fellow Award from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, and multiple teaching and research honors from the University of Colorado. He is the recipient of the 2026 Evolution in the Public Eye Award for excellence in communicating evolutionary science to the public.
In addition to his scholarly work, he writes popular science essays for general audiences and has appeared on a variety of science podcasts and other media platforms. His popular science writing has been translated into multiple languages.
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