June Gruber is a licensed clinical psychologist whose research focuses on the positive affectivity and disturbances involving positive emotion, for example, as experienced by people with bipolar disorder. She is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder and Director of the Positive Emotion and Psychopathology Laboratory (www.gruberpeplab.com). Gruber received the Association for Psychological Science (APS) Rising Star Award in 2011. and APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions in 2016. Gruber is editor of the Oxford Handbook of Positive Emotion and Psychopathology and co-editor (with Judith Tedlie Moskowitz) of Positive Emotion: Integrating the Light Sides and Dark Sides. Early life and education Gruber was raised in Half Moon Bay, California, where she attended Half Moon Bay High School and graduated as class co-valedictorian in 1999. She later attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she completed her B.A. in Psychology with the highest distinction in scholarship and high honors in psychology (2003) and was a Haas Undergraduate Research Fellow. Academic career Gruber earned her M.A. (2005) and Ph.D. (2009) in Clinical Psychology, also at UC Berkeley, where she was an NIMH Predoctoral Fellow in Affective Science. As a student of affective and clinical science, Gruber collaborated on projects with Ann Kring, Sheri Johnson, and Dacher Keltner. Her dissertation was supervised by Allison Harvey. Gruber was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University from 2009-2014. Whilst there she received the Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Junior Faculty to support her research on the potentially negative consequences of positive emotion. In 2014 she moved to the University of Colorado Boulder. Research areas Negative impacts of positive emotions: Psychopathology and bipolar disorder Gruber conducts research on the ways different types of positive emotions impact well-being and health, and particularly on negative aspects. Positive emotions may provide the basis for dysfunction, and suboptimal outcomes. This area of work is sometimes known as "positive emotion disturbance". During her graduate studies in clinical psychology Dr. Gruber gained first-hand exposure to patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and saw the potential negative consequences of heightened euphoria during mania. Happiness Gruber sees happiness as "not one single thing," but composed of "feelings, thoughts, behaviors and even the way our body responds." She believes a direct focus on achieving happiness can backfire; "people report feeling less happy the more they try to pursue it." So her advice is “Don’t