From Stress to Strength: Advancing Brain Health and Worker Wellbeing, conference by Susan Peters (Valencia, Oct 2025)

Work is changing rapidly, shaped by new technologies, an aging workforce, and shifting job demands and work arrangements. At the same time, attention is turning to brain health—the overall well-being and optimal functioning of the brain, allowing a person to realize their full potential over the life course.  This lecture will explore how emerging working conditions, psychosocial risks and job stressors, longer work lives, and the rise of artificial intelligence and technology are influencing brain health (with a focus on mental health and optimizing wellbeing) across the life course. It will highlight both the challenges—such as digital overload and stress—and the opportunities for shaping work and designing work environments that build resilience, performance, and brain-healthy and thriving workers in 21st-century organizations.

Dr. Susan Peters is the Associate Director of the Harvard Center for Work, Health, and Well-being and a Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is an Occupational Therapist by training with over two decades of clinical practice in occupational health, complemented by doctoral and post-doctoral training in health and rehabilitation sciences, environmental health, and social and behavioral sciences. Her research centers on the conditions of work for supporting worker wellbeing as a pathway for improved enterprise outcomes. Her research-to-practice approach emphasizes building organizational capacity, tailoring interventions to the realities of complex work environments and future of work, and generating actionable tools and resources for leaders, managers, and practitioners.

Where : Salón de actos (basements of the faculty)

When: 17 October

At what time: 12:30