Prof Lea Waters, AM | Director, Visible Wellbeing; Professorial Fellow, Centre for Wellbeing Science
Lea Waters

Order of Australia recipient, Lea is an Australian academic, psychologist,
author and speaker who holds a PhD in Organisational Psychology and is a world expert in School
Psychology and Parenting. She is the Director of Visible Wellbeing, the Founding Director of the
Centre for Positive Psychology (now the Centre for Wellbeing Science), University of Melbourne, and
holds a position on the Science Board of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.

Lea’s online family program the Strength Switch is based upon her acclaimed parenting book, 'The
Strength Switch', which was the top release on Amazon in the parenting category, listed among the
Top Reads by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and one of the Top Five Books for Parents
and Children in the UK’s Top Five site. It has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean,
Taiwanese, Hungarian, Arabic, Spanish, French and Russian.

Lea has written for The Wall Street Journal, TIME.com, The Atlantic, and The Guardian and her work
is featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Toronto Globe, Huffington Post, The
Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Vogue, ELLE Magazine and more. Her TEDx talk, Warning: Being
positive is not for the faint hearted!, explores how we can use social media to have a positive impact
on others’ wellbeing and has been viewed more than 190,000 times.

Lea has published 110+ scientific publications and has been awarded academic prizes for research
excellence by the American Academy of Management and the Australian and New Zealand Academy
of Management.

In 2015, Professor Waters was listed as one of Australia’s Top 100 Women of Influence by the
Financial Review. In 2017 she was listed in the Who’s Who of Australian Women. In 2020, Lea was
honoured by the Governor General of Australia and named a Member of the Order of Australia (AM)
which is one of the highest civilian honours in Australia. She was made a member based on her
leadership in psychology, education and the mental health sector in Australia.

Lea is a Past President of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) (2017-2019) and is
the Patron for Flourishing Education Japan and the Ambassador for the Positive Education Schools
Association.

For over a decade, Lea has worked with hundreds of schools across Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
USA, Hong Kong, UAE, Taiwan, Singapore, The Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and India. She has
worked with Public/Government Schools, Independent Schools, Anglican Schools, Catholic Schools,
Lutheran Schools, Christian Schools and International Schools.