The Way of Play: Using Little Moments of Big Connection to Raise Calm and Confident Kids
2025-01-30 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Zoom
Thursday, January 30, 2025, 7:00-8:00 PM, The Way of Play: Using Little Moments of Big Connection to Raise Calm and Confident Kids, a FAN webinar featuring Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D. and Georgie Wisen-Vincent, LMFT in conversation with Carly Andrews.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/BWVFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of The Way of Play to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
Most parents understand that free, unstructured playtime is great for children’s development. What they may not know is that playful interaction with parents is also a powerful way for kids to cultivate healthy emotional development and resilience. Kids often want their parents to play with them, but many parents don’t know how to play or see it only as an (often boring) way to kill time.
Playing with your kids doesn’t have to mean enrolling in countless parent-and-me classes or getting on all fours and making toy car sounds; the little daily moments together can make the most impact. In The Way of Play: Using Little Moments of Big Connection to Raise Calm and Confident Kids, world-renowned pediatric therapists and play experts Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D. and Georgie Wisen-Vincent, LMFT offer simple, playful techniques that harness this caregiving magic in only a few minutes each day.
Full of science-backed research, real-life stories, and charming line illustrations to bring this novel advice to life, The Way of Play will help you nurture your kids and encourage them to become calm listeners, cooperative problem solvers, and respectful communicators. Just as important, it will help your whole family have more fun together and build stronger relationships.
Bryson is the founder and CEO of The Center for Connection, a multidisciplinary clinical practice in Southern California. She is the co-author (with Dan Siegel, MD, FAN ‘13) of four books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline. Wisen-Vincent is a nationally recognized play therapy expert and co-founder (with Bryson) and head of faculty for The Play Strong Institute, a continuing education and training organization for professionals and parents.
Bryson and Wisen-Vincent will be in conversation with Carly Andrews, executive director of The Alliance for Early Childhood, a nonprofit organization devoted to nurturing the healthy development of young children by equipping early childhood educators, parents, and families with resources, education, and support.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Out of Your Mind: The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain
2025-02-05 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Wednesday, February 5, 2025, 7:00 PM, Out of Your Mind: The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain, a FAN webinar featuring Jorge Cham, Ph.D. and Dwayne Godwin, Ph.D.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/CGFANWebinar
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Out of Your Mind from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Cham and Godwin that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
Why do you love? Why do you lie? What makes you happy? Every single thought you have comes from one place: your brain. But what makes it tick? How much of it have we decoded, and how much of it remains an impenetrable mystery?
Join best-selling author and online cartoonist Jorge Cham, Ph.D. and neuroscientist Dwayne Godwin, Ph.D. on a deep dive into the fascinating world of the human brain. In their new book, Out of Your Mind: The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain, they will explore questions such as: What is consciousness? Where is you in the brain? And do we have free will? All while illuminating everything we know (and DON’T know) about one of the most complex objects in the known universe. Think of it as conversation, ammunition for your next cocktail party, or a quick fascinating read while you’re in the bathroom (don’t worry, the chapters aren’t that long). Centered around questions we all ask ourselves at some point but don’t usually have answers to, Out of Your Mind is an illustrated book about the brain that isn’t too brainy. Playful, accessible, and deeply insightful, it’s the one brain book that’s truly accessible and suitable for all brains.
Cham is the Daytime Emmy-nominated and best-selling cartoonist creator of the popular online comic strip “Piled Higher and Deeper.” He is the co-creator, executive producer, and creative director of Elinor Wonders Why, one of the highest-rated animated shows on PBS Kids, and the co-author of two popular science books: the best-selling and award-winning We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe and Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe, as well as the children’s book Oliver’s Great Big Universe.
Godwin is a neuroscientist, educator, and academic leader who is a professor in the Department of Translational Neuroscience and served as graduate dean at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC. His research centers on the cellular basis of abnormal brain rhythms, including active projects on calcium channel function, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
2025-02-10 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Monday, February 10, 2025, 7:00 PM, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, a FAN webinar featuring Nicholas Carr in conversation with Christine Rosen, Ph.D.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/CarrFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! We are giving away copies of Superbloom to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Nicholas Carr’s new book Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us.
A celebrated commentator on the human consequences of technology, Carr reorients the conversation around modern communication, challenging some of our most cherished beliefs about self-expression, free speech, and media democratization. He reveals how messaging apps strip nuance from conversation, how “digital crowding” erodes empathy and triggers aggression, how online political debates narrow our minds and distort our perceptions, and how advances in AI are further blurring the already hazy line between fantasy and reality. Even as Carr shows how tech companies and their tools of connection have failed us, he forces us to confront inconvenient truths about our own nature. The human psyche, it turns out, is profoundly ill-suited to the “superbloom” of information that technology has unleashed.
Carr is the author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and four other acclaimed books. A former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, he writes for the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Carr will be in conversation with Christine Rosen, Ph.D., a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on American history, society and culture, technology and culture, and feminism. Concurrently she is a columnist for Commentary magazine and one of the cohosts of The Commentary Magazine Podcast. She is also a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and a senior editor in an advisory position at the New Atlantis.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

John Lewis: A Life David Greenberg, Ph.D.
2025-02-19 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Wednesday, February 19, 2025, 7:00 PM, John Lewis: A Life, a FAN webinar featuring David Greenberg, Ph.D. in conversation with David Blight, Ph.D. (FAN ’19).
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/DGFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! We are giving away copies of John Lewis: A Life to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
In John Lewis: A Life, award-winning historian and journalist David Greenberg, Ph.D., professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, presents new details in the life of a man who lived with courage and conviction, and who resisted hating those who hated him.
Born into poverty in rural Alabama, John Lewis would become second only to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. He was a leader of the Nashville sit-in movement, a Freedom Rider who helped to integrate bus stations in the South, the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which he helped make into one of the major civil rights organizations. He may be best remembered as the victim of a vicious beating by Alabama state troopers at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he nearly died.
Greenberg’s biography traces Lewis’s life from his youth as a precocious bookworm who sought education and freedom in the Jim Crow era, through the post-Civil Rights years, when he headed the Voter Education Project, which enrolled millions of African American voters across the South. The book reveals the littleknown story of his political ascent first locally in Atlanta, and then as a member of Congress. Tapped to be a part of the Democratic leadership in Congress, he earned respect on both sides of the aisle for the sacrifices he had made on behalf of nonviolent integration in the South and came to be known as the “conscience of the Congress.”
Thoroughly researched and dramatically told, Greenberg’s biography captures and conveys the power of Lewis’s surpassing courage and faith in nonviolence while also revealing him to be far more politically skilled, pragmatic, and canny than commonly thought.
Greenberg will be in conversation with renowned historian David Blight, Ph.D. (FAN ’19), Sterling Professor of History and Director, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, Yale University.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing
2025-02-20 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Thursday, February 20, 2025, 7:00 PM, The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing, a FAN webinar featuring Mary-Frances O’Connor, Ph.D. in conversation with Meghan Riordan Jarvis, MA, LICSW.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/MFO25FANWebinar
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of The Grieving Body from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by O’Connor and Jarvis that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
Coping with death and grief is one of the most painful human experiences. While we can speak to the psychological and emotional ramifications of loss and sorrow, we often overlook its impact on our physical bodies. Mary-Frances O’Connor, Ph.D. specializes in the study of grief, and in her new book The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing she shares vital scientific research, revealing imperative new insights on its profound physiological impact. As she did in The Grieving Brain: How We Learn from Love and Loss, O’Connor combines illuminating studies and personal stories to explore the toll loss takes on our cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune systems and the larger implications for our long-term well-being. The Grieving Brain addresses questions about the effects of bereavement, including information about: What happens in our bodies when we’re grieving? How do our coping behaviors affect our physical health? What is the cognitive impact of grief? Why are we more prone to illness during times of enormous stress?
O’Connor is a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, where she directs the Grief, Loss and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab, investigating the effects of grief on the brain and the body. O’Connor holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in psychoneuroimmunology at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
O’Connor will be in conversation with Meghan Riordan Jarvis, MA, LICSW, a psychotherapist, author, podcast host (Grief is My Side Hustle), two-time TEDx speaker, educator, corporate consultant, and soughtafter keynote speaker specializing in trauma and grief and loss.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

2025 Trivia Night!
2025-02-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Max & Benny’s, 461 Waukegan Rd, Northbrook, IL, 60062, United States
Don’t miss trivia at Max & Benny’s on February 20th 2025, FSC’s 2nd Trivia Night! Register now here: http://weblink.donorperfect.com/FSCTriviaNight2025

See pictures from last year’s event here: 2024 FSC Trivia Night Photo Album

Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D.
2025-02-24 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Monday, February 24, 2025, 12:00 PM CT, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will, a FAN webinar featuring Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D. in conversation with Oliver Burkeman (FAN ’24).
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/SapolskyFANWebinar
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Determined from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Sapolsky that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
One of our great behavioral scientists, Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., the bestselling author of Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, mounts a devastating scientific and philosophical case against free will—an argument with profound consequences.
Behave, Sapolsky’s now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: we may not grasp exactly how nature and nurture create the physics and chemistry that cause all human behavior, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. In his latest book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self who tells our biology what to do.
Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about consciousness—the tight weave between reason and emotion and between stimulus and response in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky takes out all the major arguments for free will, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos theory and quantum physics. But as Sapolsky acknowledges, it’s sometimes impossible to uncouple from our zeal to judge people, including ourselves. Determined applies this new understanding to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. Most of all, Sapolsky argues that while accepting the reality about free will is monumentally difficult, it will make for a much more humane world.
Sapolsky will be in conversation with Oliver Burkeman (FAN ’24), New York Times bestselling author of Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts; Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others Adam Galinsky, Ph.D.
2025-03-03 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Monday, March 3, 2025, 7:00 PM, Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others, a FAN webinar featuring Adam Galinsky, Ph.D. in conversation with Amy C. Edmondson, Ph.D.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/AGFANWebinar
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Inspire from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Galinsky and Edmondson that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
Social psychologist and leadership expert Adam Galinsky, Ph.D. has spent three decades building a method for determining when we are inspiring versus infuriating, and where various leaders—presidents, CEOs, coaches, teachers, parents, and a wealth of others—currently land on that spectrum. In his new book Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others, Galinsky shows how inspiring leaders can fill us with a wellspring of hope and possibility as they guide us to become better versions of ourselves. In contrast, infuriating leaders disappoint and annoy, fueling seething cauldrons of rage. But both types of leaders are deeply connected—together, they represent a universal continuum that is rooted in the very architecture of the human brain. This means that inspiring leaders aren’t born—instead, we can inspire or infuriate in any given moment through our behavior, words, or presence.
Whether you’re a leader, a member of a team, a spouse, or a parent, this engaging and rigorous exploration unpacks the science of inspiration. Through compelling stories, fascinating research, and practical tips for addressing the common dilemmas we face daily, Inspire reveals how all of us, regardless of status or circumstance, can be more inspiring more often.
Galinsky is the Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School and has published more than 200 scientific articles on leadership, negotiations, diversity, and ethics. He is an Executive/Associate Producer on two documentaries short-listed for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.
Galinsky will be in conversation with Amy C. Edmondson, Ph.D., the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society. She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organizational learning.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life
2025-03-05 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Wednesday, March 5, 2025, 7:00 PM, 99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life, a FAN webinar featuring Adam Chandler in conversation with Kathy Gilsinan.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/ChandlerFANWebinar
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of 99% Perspiration from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Chandler and Gilsinan that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This phrase, arguably Thomas Edison’s most famous quote, has been drilled into the minds of generations of Americans. A straightforward iteration of the idea that innovation, discovery, and ingenuity are the result of drive and grit above all, it has also come to represent much darker myths: that hard work always leads to success and that achievement is the product of individuals and not communities. In this model, those who come out on top are there because they earned it, and everyone else needs to buckle down, glove up, and, maybe one day, they’ll get there too.
As the wealth gap widens, communities crumble, and Americans work more for less, journalist Adam Chandler raises the question: What happens when perspiration isn’t enough? To answer it in his new book 99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life, Chandler crisscrosses the country interviewing mayors, teachers, generals, pastors, construction workers, and entrepreneurs, to reveal just how untenable relying on “perspiration” as a strategy has truly become. He also delves into America’s past to reveal how our government, education system, and culture at large have woven the idea of meritocracy deep into the fabric of American society and how some of history’s most famous so-called bootstrappers really built their wealth. From George Washington to Seattle, Washington, Jay Gatsby to Bill Gates, 99% Perspiration unpacks the misguided obsession with hard work that has come to define both the American dream and nightmare, offering insight into how we got here and hope for where we may go.
Chandler is the author of Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom and a recurring guest on The History Channel’s The Food That Built America. A former staff writer at The Atlantic, Chandler’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, WIRED, and elsewhere.
Chandler will be in conversation with Kathy Gilsinan, author of The Helpers: Profiles from the Front Lines of the Pandemic, and a senior editor at Puck News. Previously she covered the Midwest for Politico Magazine and was a senior editor and staff writer at The Atlantic, where she ran the international coverage before covering foreign policy and national security herself.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Shift: Managing Your Emotions -- So They Don't Manage You Ethan Kross, Ph.D. (1 of 2)
2025-03-06 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Thursday, March 6, 2025, 7:00 PM, Shift: Managing Your Emotions — So They Don’t Manage You, a FAN webinar featuring Ethan Kross, Ph.D. in conversation with Daniel Pink (FAN ’18, ‘22).
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/KPFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! We are giving away copies of Shift to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
Whether it’s anxiety about going to the doctor, boiling rage when we’re stuck in traffic, or devastation after a painful break-up, our lives are filled with situations that send us spiraling. But as difficult as our emotions can be, they are also a superpower. Far from being “good” or “bad,” emotions are information. When they’re activated in the right ways and at the right time, they function like an immune system, alerting us to our surroundings, telling us how to react to a situation, and helping us make the right choices.
But how do we make our emotions work for us rather than against us? Acclaimed psychologist Ethan Kross, Ph.D. has devoted his scientific career to answering this question. In his new bestselling book Shift: Managing Your Emotions — So They Don’t Manage You, he dispels common myths—for instance, that avoidance is always toxic or that we should always strive to live in the moment—and provides a new framework for shifting our emotions so they don’t take over our lives.
Shift weaves groundbreaking research with riveting stories of people struggling and succeeding to manage their emotions—from a mother whose fear prompted her to make a spur-of-the-moment decision that would save her daughter’s life mid-flight to a nuclear code-carrying Navy SEAL who learned how to embrace both joy and pain during a hellish training activity. Kross spotlights a wide array of tools that we already have access to—in our bodies and minds, our relationships with other people, and the cultures and physical spaces we inhabit—and shows us how to harness them to be healthier and more successful.
Kross is the director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan and professor in its top ranked psychology department and Ross School of Business. His book Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters, and How to Harness It was an international bestseller.
Kross will be in conversation with Daniel Pink (FAN ’18, ’22), the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several provocative, bestselling books about business, work, creativity, and behavior, including The Power of Regret, When, To Sell Is Human, Drive, and A Whole New Mind.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Shift: Managing Your Emotions -- So They Don't Manage You Ethan Kross, Ph.D. (2 of 2)
2025-03-11 19:00 - 20:00 | North Shore Country Day School, 310 Green Bay Rd, Winnetka, 60093, United States
Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 7:00 PM, Shift: Managing Your Emotions — So They Don’t Manage You, in conversation with Heidi Stevens, North Shore Country Day Auditorium, 310 Green Bay Rd., Winnetka, IL 60093
No registration required.
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! We are giving away copies of Shift at the event while supplies last.
Whether it’s anxiety about going to the doctor, boiling rage when we’re stuck in traffic, or devastation after a painful break-up, our lives are filled with situations that send us spiraling. But as difficult as our emotions can be, they are also a superpower. Far from being “good” or “bad,” emotions are information. When they’re activated in the right ways and at the right time, they function like an immune system, alerting us to our surroundings, telling us how to react to a situation, and helping us make the right choices.
But how do we make our emotions work for us rather than against us? Acclaimed psychologist Ethan Kross, Ph.D. has devoted his scientific career to answering this question. In his new bestselling book Shift: Managing Your Emotions — So They Don’t Manage You, he dispels common myths—for instance, that avoidance is always toxic or that we should always strive to live in the moment—and provides a new framework for shifting our emotions so they don’t take over our lives.
Shift weaves groundbreaking research with riveting stories of people struggling and succeeding to manage their emotions—from a mother whose fear prompted her to make a spur-of-the-moment decision that would save her daughter’s life mid-flight to a nuclear code-carrying Navy SEAL who learned how to embrace both joy and pain during a hellish training activity. Kross spotlights a wide array of tools that we already have access to—in our bodies and minds, our relationships with other people, and the cultures and physical spaces we inhabit—and shows us how to harness them to be healthier and more successful.
Kross is the director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan and professor in its top ranked psychology department and Ross School of Business. His book Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters, and How to Harness It was an international bestseller.
Kross will be in conversation with Heidi Stevens, Director of External Affairs for the University of Chicago’s TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, and creative director for Parent Nation, an initiative of the TMW Center. Prior to joining Parent Nation, Stevens worked at the Chicago Tribune for 23 years, where she wrote a daily column called Balancing Act. She was awarded the Anne Keegan Award for Distinguished Journalism in 2018. Stevens maintains a nationally syndicated column once a week.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded but not live streamed and will be available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

PANEL: Healthy Kids Social Media Habits for Families: Raising Kids in a Connected World
2025-03-13 18:00 - 19:00 | Women’s Club of Wilmette, 930 Greenleaf Ave, Wilmette, 60091, United States
Join the Woman’s Club of Wilmette for a lively and informative discussion about how we can help our kids navigate social media in a healthy way!
Doors open at 5:30
Register here: registration link

Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change Olga Khazan
2025-03-17 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Monday, March 17, 2025, 7:00 PM CT, Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change, a FAN webinar featuring Olga Khazan in conversation with Maria Konnikova.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/KhazanFANWebinar
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: Attendees who purchase a copy of Me, But Better from FAN’s partner bookseller The Book Stall are invited to attend an AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Khazan that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
In recent years, Olga Khazan had been spiraling toward an existential crisis. Though she treasured her loving relationship and her dream job, her neurotic personality often left her snatching dissatisfaction from the jaws of happiness. While her overachieving had always been a professional asset, Khazan lately felt like her brittle disposition could shatter under the weight of just one more thing—but could she really change her entire personality?
Research shows that you can alter your personality traits by behaving in ways that align with the kind of person you’d like to be—a process that can make you happier, healthier, and more successful. In Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change, Khazan embarks on an experiment to see whether it’s possible to go from dwelling in dread to “radiating joy.” For one year, she reluctantly clicked “yes” on a bucket list of new experiences—from meditation to improv to sailing—that forced her to at least act happy. With a skeptic’s eye, Khazan brings you on her journey through the science of personality, presenting evidence-backed techniques to help you change your mind for the better. Sharply witty and deeply fascinating, Me, But Better offers a probing inquiry into what it means to live a fulfilling life, and how you can keep diving into change, no matter how uncomfortable it feels.
Khazan is a staff writer for The Atlantic and the author of the 2020 book Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World. She has also written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Forbes, and other publications.
Khazan will be in conversation with Maria Konnikova, the author, most recently, of The Biggest Bluff, a New York Times bestseller, and the bestsellers The Confidence Game and Mastermind. She is the cohost, along with Nate Silver, of the weekly podcast Risky Business. While researching The Biggest Bluff, Konnikova became an international poker champion, a World Series of Poker Bracelet Winner, an ambassador for PokerStars Team Pro, and the winner of over $1,000,000 in tournament earnings.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Wilmette Mental Health Fair
2025-04-05 14:30 - 16:30 | First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette, 600 9th St, Wilmette, IL, 60091
Join FSC, FSC’s Co-Executive Director Dr. Renee Dominguez, and community partner organizations at First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette for this important event. Leave with tangible steps toward positive mental health. All are welcome!
There will be an expert panel discussion moderated by Dr. Dominguez: “Navigating the Anxious Generation: How We Can Empower Our Kids.” You will also have the chance to learn more about local agencies and community partners before and after the panel.
When: Saturday, April 5th, 2025 2:30pm – 4:30pm (expert panel from 3:00pm – 4:00pm)
Where: First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette, 600 9th St, Wilmette
Register: Registration encouraged but not required, scan the QR code above or click here to register.
We hope to see you there!

Untethered: Creating Connected Families, Schools, and Communities to Raise a Resilient Generation
2025-04-08 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Tuesday, April 8, 2025, 7:00 PM, Untethered: Creating Connected Families, Schools, and Communities to Raise a Resilient Generation, a FAN webinar featuring Doug Bolton, Ph.D. in conversation with Lisa Damour, Ph.D. (FAN ’19, ’20, ’21, ’23).
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/BoltonFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of Untethered to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
Over the past decade, children’s mental health challenges have reached epidemic levels—stress, anxiety, childhood depression, and suicide are at unprecedented high rates. Amid high-stakes pressure for kids to succeed, parents and teachers have never needed a road map to healthy child development more urgently. And as clinical psychologist and educator Doug Bolton, Ph.D. explains in Untethered: Creating Connected Families, Schools, and Communities to Raise a Resilient Generation, his eye-opening and powerful new book, underlying our modern-day stresses is an even more pervasive problem: We’re relying on practices that are not in line with what science tells us about how to truly motivate children and help them thrive.
As Bolton persuasively argues, we need to step away from parenting and teaching based on controlling our children with incentives and punishments—they focus on short-term compliance at the cost of health development. Instead, creating healthy and strongly bonded communities for our children, both in our own families and in our schools, is key to their emotional well-being, and their success in life. Untethered offers tools to help us create these communities so our kids develop healthy attachments and learn emotional regulation, helping them feel more connected, less anxious, more included, less shamed, and more securely grounded. The power of communities is not only that they enhance our wellness—they buffer us from the impact of trauma and can be a guiding force in helping kids develop resilience.
Bolton will be in conversation with Lisa Damour, Ph.D. (FAN ’19, ’20, ’21, ’23), the author of three New York Times best sellers: Untangled, Under Pressure, and The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, which have been translated into twenty-three languages. She co-hosts the Ask Lisa podcast, works in collaboration with UNICEF, and is recognized as a thought leader by the American Psychological Association. Damour authored the monthly Adolescence column for The New York Times, is a regular contributor to CBS News, and created Untangling 10to20, a digital library of premium content to support teens and those who care for them.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life
2025-04-09 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 7:00 PM, Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, a FAN webinar featuring Maggie Smith (FAN ’20, ’23) in conversation with Glory Edim (FAN ’24).
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/Smith25FANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of Dear Writer to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
New York Times bestselling author and poet Maggie Smith (FAN ’20, ’23) believes creativity is our birthright as human beings. Yes, all of us—no matter our age or profession. Creativity improves our mental health, our adaptability, and our communication skills. In Smith’s new book, Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, she offers, “anything that applies to writing also applies to life. Problem-solving is a creative act. Conversations are creative. Parenting is creative. Falling in love, leaving your job, changing your mind—all creative acts. Creativity isn’t just about making art. Making your life is the ultimate creative act.”
Drawing lessons from her twenty years of teaching experience and her bestselling, craft-focused Substack newsletter, For Dear Life, Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Each element is explored through short, inspiring essays, followed by generative writing prompts that readers can use to kickstart their own creativity. For example, the section on tenacity tackles how to turn off one’s inner critic, take rejection in stride, and stay inspired through creative blocks. Dear Writer provides tools that artists and readers of all experience levels can apply to their own creative practices and carry with them across genres and into all areas of life.
Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Keep Moving, Goldenrod, Good Bones, and other books. She has been widely published, appearing in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, the New York Times, the Atlantic, The Best American Poetry, and more.
Smith will be in conversation with Glory Edim (FAN ’24), is an award-winning literary tastemaker, entrepreneur, and advocate for diverse voices in literature. Edim is the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, an online platform and book club dedicated to celebrating the works of Black women authors and creating a supportive online community for readers, and author of Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice & Change Emily Falk, Ph.D.
2025-04-16 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Wednesday, April 16, 2025, 12:00 PM CT, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice & Change, a FAN webinar featuring Emily Falk, Ph.D. in conversation with Ethan Kross, Ph.D. (FAN ’25).
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/FalkFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of What We Value to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
With so many competing priorities pulling us in different directions every day―family, friends, work, our health―it can feel difficult to make decisions that are aligned with what we care about most. Especially in the moment, we often default to the immediate demand, the path of least resistance, the worn old habit we wanted to change. In What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice & Change, pioneering scholar Emily Falk, Ph.D. reveals how we can transform our relationship with the daily decisions that define our lives―opening pathways to make more purposeful, fulfilling choices; more successfully change our behavior; and influence others to see differently―by thinking like neuroscientists.
Drawing on her own award-winning research, Falk introduces readers to a new paradigm for understanding why we, and those around us, do what we do. This is the value calculation: the often-subconscious mechanism by which the brain computes our everyday choices. Falk shows that we can learn to work more strategically with the value calculation―whether we want to embrace new activities and behaviors, connect more meaningfully with others, or become more effective leaders in our organizations and communities. Falk demonstrates how we can change what we think just by changing what we think about; get less defensive by connecting with our core values; and seed innovation by seeking out different perspectives.
Falk is an award-winning Professor of Communication, Psychology, Marketing, and Operations, Informatics, and Decisions (OID) at the University of Pennsylvania; Vice Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication; Director of the Communication Neuroscience Lab; and Director of the Climate Communication Division of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. She is an expert in the science of behavior change. Her research uses tools from psychology, neuroscience, and communication to examine what makes messages persuasive, why and how ideas spread, and what makes people effective communicators.
Falk will be in conversation with Ethan Kross, Ph.D. (FAN ’25), Professor, Management & Organizations, Ross School of Business, and Director of the Emotion and Self Control Lab, University of Michigan. He is the author of the international bestseller Chatter and the new bestselling book Shift: Managing Your Emotions — So They Don’t Manage You.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Viva FSC! - 2025 Spring Benefit!
2025-04-26 19:00 - 22:30 | Fields Lexus, 2000 Waukegan Road, Glenview, IL, 60025, United States
Enjoy a night in Vegas at Viva FSC! on Saturday, April 26th 2025! Early bird pricing goes through 3/29.

Learn more and register here | See photos from last year’s event here

No Shame on U: Cover My Mental Health: Overcoming Insurance Obstacles for Care
2025-05-01 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Cover My Mental Health: Overcoming Insurance Obstacles for Care
May 1, 2025
7pm CT
Via – ZOOM
Has your insurance ever denied mental health treatment deemed necessary by a professional? Been told your medication isn’t covered, even though you rely on it? If you’re tired of fighting insurance battles alone, this talk is for you. Cover My Mental Health, a nonprofit organization, provides no-cost resources to help individuals and families effectively advocate for the care they deserve. This presentation will introduce practical strategies for challenging insurance denials and overcoming obstacles to treatment. Led by Joe Feldman, founder of Cover My Mental Health and a parent who successfully fought for his children’s mental health care, this session will equip you with the tools to push back against insurer roadblocks and secure the coverage you need.
Presented by:
Joe Feldman, MBA
Founder and Director, Cover My Mental Health
FREE and VIRTUAL!
Register HERE!

2025 FSC Neon Golf Scramble
2025-07-09 10:00 - 17:00 | Wilmette Golf Club, 3900 Fairway Dr, Wilmette, IL, 60091
Join us for the 2025 FSC Neon Golf Scramble!
When: July 9, 2025
Where: Wilmette Golf Club, Wilmette IL (3900 Fairway Dr, Wilmette, IL 60091)
Tickets include grab-and-go lunch and one (1) beverage cart ticket per player.
Check-in starts: 10:00am
Long-Putt Contest: 10:45am
Shotgun Start: 12:00pm
Raffle Closes: 3:00pm
Grab your foursome, or register yourself and we will assign you to a team.
Participants will check-in at 10am and be ready for a shotgun start at noon, where they will enjoy a golf team scramble, plus exciting contests and games.
Get tickets for our raffle for a chance to win amazing prizes. Long-putt contest and mulligans are also available.
Together, we will drive change, promote mental wellness, and create a brighter future for those who use our services. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to swing for a cause! Neon attire encouraged!
Sponsorships available here! Or reach out to sponsors@familyservicecenter.com

[FAN] Dream School: Finding the College That's Right for You
2025-09-03 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Wednesday, September 3, 2025, 7:00 PM CT, Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You, a FAN webinar featuring Jeff Selingo (FAN ’20, ’21, ‘22), in conversation with Frank Bruni (FAN ’15).
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/Selingo25FANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of Dream School to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
Attending college has long been a rite of passage for millions of teens and a bedrock of the American dream. But that well-worn path has lately taken a wrong turn, denying admission even to super-achievers and putting intolerable stress on family finances. Now, in Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You, Jeff Selingo (FAN ’20, ’21, ’22) shifts the spotlight from how colleges pick students to how students can better pick colleges.
With test-optional policies and grade inflation leveling the playing field for applicants, getting into prestigious schools has become a kind of lottery. “Plan A” may work out, but increasingly it isn’t—so Selingo urges families to ditch the “Top 25 or bust” mindset and look beyond the usual suspects. Hidden-gem schools with incredible value and rich opportunities are waiting to be discovered.
Backed by unparalleled research—and an eye-opening survey of more than 3,000 parents—Dream School reveals what really matters in a college: strong job prospects after graduation, hands-on learning experiences, and a sense of belonging. To help students find their perfect match, Selingo highlights 75 accessible and affordable colleges that will satisfy those priorities.
Organized into three easy-to-digest sections, Dream School explains why elite college degrees turn out to matter less than you think, why many parents and students are choosing value over prestige, and how to make sure the degree really pays off.
Selingo is a New York Times bestselling author of three books on education and the job market. For more than twenty-five years, his in-depth reporting and storytelling have provided practical insight about the future of higher education and the workforce to university leaders, corporate executives, as well as students and parents.
Selingo will be in conversation with prominent New York Times journalist Frank Bruni (FAN ’15), author of Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be, about the college admissions mania; The Beauty of Dusk; and most recently, The Age of Grievance. He is the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University, teaching media-oriented classes in the Sanford School of Public Policy.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

ROCKTEMBER⚡FEST
2025-09-13 18:00 - 23:00 | MLB Glenview, 1948-D Lehigh Road, Glenview, IL, United States
A Charity Music Event
Live Music | Food & Drinks | Raffles | Live Auction
Classic Rock Covers on stage at 6:30pm
Food & Drinks provided by Oak
Benefiting FSC & other local awesome agencies and programs!
$85/Ticket (PRESALE $65/TICKET THROUGH 8/31)
Scan the QR on the flyer to register.

[FAN] After the Spike: Population, Progress and the Case for People Michael Geruso, Ph.D.
2025-09-17 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Wednesday, September 17, 2025, 7:00 PM CT, After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People, a FAN webinar featuring Michael Geruso, Ph.D., in conversation with Katy Milkman, Ph.D.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/GerusoFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of After the Spike to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
Most people on Earth today live in a country where birth rates already are too low to stabilize the population: fewer than two children for every two adults. In After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People, economists Dean Spears, Ph.D., and Michael Geruso, Ph.D., sound a wakeup call, explaining why global depopulation is coming, why it matters, and what to do now.
It would be easy to think that fewer people would be better—better for the planet, better for the people who remain. This book invites us all to think again. Despite what we may have been told, depopulation is not the solution we urgently need for environmental challenges like climate change. Nor will it raise living standards by dividing what the world can offer across fewer of us. Spears and Geruso investigate what depopulation would mean for the climate, for living standards, for equity, for progress, for freedom, for humanity’s general welfare. And what it would mean if, instead, people came together to share the work of caregiving and of building societies where parenting fits better with everything else that people aspire to.
With new evidence and sharp insights, Spears and Geruso make a lively and compelling case for stabilizing the population—without sacrificing our dreams of a greener future or reverting to past gender inequities. They challenge us to see how depopulation threatens social equity and material progress, and how welcoming it denies the inherent value of every human life. More than an assembly of the most important facts, After the Spike asks what future we should want for our planet, for our children, and for one another.
Geruso is an economic demographer, public economist, and associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. He served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he advised on issues of health and demography. He holds bachelor’s degrees in engineering, political science, and philosophy, and earned his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton.
Geruso will be in conversation with Katy Milkman, Ph.D., the James G. Dinan Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the host of Charles Schwab’s popular behavioral economics podcast Choiceology. She is also the co-founder and co-director (with Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., FAN ’12, ’16) of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at Penn.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

[FAN] Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women's Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours Corinne Low, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Wharton School of
2025-09-18 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Thursday, September 18, 2025, 7:00 PM CT, Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours, a FAN webinar featuring Corinne Low, Ph.D., in conversation with Jessica Calarco, Ph.D. (FAN ’24)
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/LowFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of Having It All to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
For women in America today, the promise of “having it all” is an ever-elusive carrot. Faced with unsustainable demands in every sphere, we are certainly doing it all but at a steep cost. Research shows that biologically, culturally, and economically, we are on uneven playing ground, and one that drains us of our happiness. But that same data can empower us to make choices that will reclaim our time, our energy―and even our joy.
In her new book Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours, Corinne Low, Ph.D., an associate professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, unpacks the hidden factors that influence women’s decision-making, and how the unintended consequences of these choices alter the course of our lives. From when and whether to get married and (or) have children to what type of career to pursue, whether to obtain an advanced degree to where to live, Low explores questions such as 1) what if there is no optimal time to “have a family” but rather a slew of different considerations at different life stages?; 2) what if we approached decisions around marriage and partnership as rigorously as we would an employment opportunity; and 3) what if we valued our time in dollars and cents, and structured our lives around choices that give us the greatest return on our investments?
Low has spoken to and advised firms like Google, IFM Investors, Uber, Activision Blizzard, and Amazon Web Services, in addition to teaching in Wharton’s Executive Education programs. Low has given talks to top academic institutions like Harvard University, Stanford University, and Oxford, as well as to the New York Federal Reserve, Brookings Institution, and the US Department of Labor, among others.
Low will be in conversation with award-winning teacher Jessica Calarco, Ph.D. (FAN ’24), a sociologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of the 2024 book Holding it Together: How Women Became America’s Social Safety Net.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

FSC & GPL: Back-to-School Without the Meltdowns: Study Strategies That Actually Work
2025-09-22 19:00 - 20:30 | Glenview Public Library, 1930 Glenview Road, Glenview, IL, 60025
Join us! We hope to see you at the Glenview Public Library for our 90-minute workshop to ease the back-to-school transition for kids and the grownups who support them. We’ll have brain-based strategies to build focus, reduce stress, and boost confidence as you settle into back-to-school routines.
When: Monday, September 22, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Glenview Public Library Community Room (1930 Glenview Road, Glenview)
Register here: https://glenviewpl.bibliocommons.com/…/68b9a076cefea328…
All caregivers welcome! Supervised activities and snacks for kids will be provided. Register today!

Topics to be covered:

Study tips that align with how brains actually learn
Simple tools for emotional regulation and motivation
How to troubleshoot tricky transitions and make routines work
Ways to support neurodivergent learners, including those with ADHD and anxiety
Parents and caregivers will leave with ready-to-use techniques, a better understanding of how learning and regulation work together, and resources to access additional support if needed.

[FAN] Mastery: Why Deeper Learning is Essential in an Age of Distraction Ulrik Juul Christensen, MD
2025-09-25 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Thursday, September 25, 2025, 7:00 PM CT, Mastery: Why Deeper Learning is Essential in an Age of Distraction, a FAN webinar featuring Ulrik Juul Christensen, MD, and Tony Wagner, Ed.D., in conversation with Fernande Raine, Ph.D.
REGISTER: Click here to register
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of Mastery to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
How much information is forgotten almost immediately after it is taught? How many students graduate from high school unprepared for careers where lifelong learning is essential to succeed? These problems stem from an educational system that uses time spent in a classroom and the results of standardized, multiple-choice tests as proxies for actual understanding. In their new book, Mastery: Why Deeper Learning is Essential in an Age of Distraction, educators Tony Wagner, Ed.D., and Ulrik Juul Christensen, MD, call for a radical new system of learning, where students progress individually when they demonstrate that they can use what they have learned—no matter how long it takes to get there. This is called mastery learning, and it is the future of education.
This book shows how mastery learning is already being used in the United States and around the world, from kindergarten to college and in the workplace. Through conversations with teachers, students, parents, policymakers, and employers, Wagner and Christensen show how mastery improves motivation and prepares students for productive work, an engaged civic life, and personal growth and well-being. They also outline the challenges of adopting mastery learning and how to overcome them. Mastery is an urgent call to action to transform education for all.
Christensen is a globally recognized authority in learning technology, and a co-founder of Area9 Group, a leader in personalized and adaptive learning. His current focus is on Area9 Lyceum, which has integrated the group’s educational investments and technologies to develop the fourth-generation adaptive learning platform and to pioneer four-dimensional education.
Wagner currently serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the Learning Policy Institute. He was the founder and co-director, for more than a decade, of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is the author of eight books, including the international bestseller The Global Achievement Gap.
Christensen and Wagner will be in conversation with Fernande Raine, Ph.D., a historian, serial entrepreneur, and Founder and Co-Lead of History Co:Lab.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

Evereve at the Glen's Fashion Fundraiser
2025-10-03 10:00 - 20:00 | Evereve at the Glen, 2670 Navy Blvd,, Glenview, IL
Mark the date for Evereve at the Glen’s Fashion Fundraiser:

Shop 10am – 8pm on Friday, October 3rd, at 2670 Navy Blvd, Glenview, and 15% of purchases will benefit FSC!

You’ll be doing good and looking good! Thank you, Evereve at the Glen, for supporting mental health in our community

[FAN] Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef Curtis Duffy
2025-10-09 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Thursday, October 9, 2025, 12:00 PM CT, Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef, a FAN webinar featuring Curtis Duffy in conversation with Heidi Stevens.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/CDuffyFANWebinar
BONUS BOOK GIVEAWAY! FAN is giving away copies of Fireproof to randomly selected Zoom attendees. Details on the webinar registration page.
Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef charts chef Curtis Duffy’s rise, despite a childhood and adolescence rife with trauma, to being mentored by and recognized among the world’s top chefs. Amid family chaos in rural Ohio, a young Duffy found refuge first in a high school home economics class, then at one of Columbus’s best restaurants, where he honed his skills. His passion ignited, Duffy was determined to leave Ohio and break the Duffy family curse.
But the tragic deaths of Duffy’s parents when he was only 19 jeopardized his promising professional career. Summoning extraordinary fortitude and resilience, Duffy ate pain, graduated culinary school, and moved to Chicago to work in chef Charlie Trotter’s namesake restaurant, a hotbed of talent that produced prominent alumni such as Grant Achatz, Graham Elliot, and Homaro Cantu. Inspired by stellar peers and staging for Thomas Keller at the French Laundry, Duffy’s drive only grew.
Duffy’s laser-focused ambition cost him a marriage, and Grace restaurant. Grace earned three Michelin stars four years in a row, solidifying Duffy’s place as one of the world’s greatest culinary artists. But in a heartbreaking act of defiance, Duffy walked out after disputes with Grace’s owner.
Undeterred, Duffy created Ever restaurant—a launch nearly derailed by the pandemic. He persisted where many others would have resigned their craft, and Ever earned two Michelin stars from 2021-2024. Duffy was ranked one of the “50 Most Powerful People in American Fine Dining” in 2024 by the Robb Report.
Duffy will be in conversation with Heidi Stevens, Director of External Affairs for the University of Chicago’s TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, and creative director for Parent Nation, an initiative of the TMW Center. Stevens has been a FAN board member since 2021.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

[FAN] The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups Colin M. Fisher, Ph.D.
2025-10-15 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 12:00 PM CT, The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups, a FAN webinar featuring Colin M. Fisher, Ph.D., in conversation with Amy C. Edmondson, Ph.D.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/CFisherFANWebinar
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: FAN donors are invited to attend a private AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Fisher that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
Life is full of groups—work teams, families, friends, and communities defined by race, religion, and nationality. Yet, in our hyper-individualized society, we spend surprisingly little time thinking about what groups really are, how they work, and how to get the best out of them. It’s time to change that. The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups by Colin M. Fisher, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Organizations and Innovation at University College London’s School of Management, reveals the invisible forces that shape group dynamics and shows how understanding these forces can lead to extraordinary accomplishments. Fisher is a renowned expert in team dynamics and leadership, with years of experience in studying and advising on effective teamwork.
Drawing on decades of research across social psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, neuroscience, and management, this comprehensive, approachable guide illustrates how groups and teams affect everything from complicated family dynamics and frustrating work meetings to the successes of the 2008 US Olympic Men’s Basketball Team and The Rolling Stones.
Organized into four main sections—Cooperation, Conformity, Competition, and Leadership—each part of the book is packed with action-oriented “Group Thoughts” to help apply the principles discussed. Fisher’s engaging storytelling makes complex scientific concepts accessible and relatable, offering readers practical tools to improve their leadership, relationships, decision-making, creativity, and sense of belonging.
Fisher’s research has uncovered the hidden processes of helping groups and teams in situations requiring creativity, improvisation, and complex decision-making. He has written about group dynamics for both popular science and management audiences, and his work has been profiled in prominent media outlets such as BBC, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, NPR, and The Times.
Fisher will be in conversation with Amy C. Edmondson, Ph.D., the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.

[FAN] The Collective Edge: Unlocking the Secret Power of Groups Noah Giansiracusa, Ph.D.
2025-10-20 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Monday, October 20, 2025, 7:00 PM CT, Robin Hood Math: Take Control of the Algorithms That Run Your Life, a FAN webinar featuring Noah Giansiracusa, Ph.D., in conversation with Karen Saxe, Ph.D.
REGISTER: www.bit.ly/NGFANWebinar
BONUS AFTER-HOURS EVENT: FAN donors are invited to attend a private AFTER-HOURS event hosted by Siracusa and Saxe that will start immediately after the webinar. Details on the webinar registration page.
Everything we do today is recorded as data that’s sold to the highest bidder. Plugging our personal data into impersonal algorithms has made government agencies more efficient and tech companies more profitable. But all this comes at a price. It’s easy to feel like an insignificant number in a world of number crunchers who care more about their bottom line than your humanity. It’s time to flip the equation, turning math into an empowering tool for the rest of us.
In his new book Robin Hood Math: Take Control of the Algorithms That Run Your Life, award-winning mathematician Noah Giansiracusa, Ph.D., explains how the tech giants and financial institutions use formulas to get ahead—and how anyone can use these same formulas in their everyday life. Through real world events and relatable examples, Giansiracusa makes math fun and relevant, equipping readers with simple math hacks and streamlined formulas that can be applied immediately. You’ll learn how to handle risk rationally, make better investments, take control of your social media, and reclaim agency over the decisions you make each day.
Giansiracusa, an associate professor of mathematics at Bentley University and a visiting scholar at Harvard University, has spent his career studying algorithms and society. He has penned over a dozen prominent op-eds at outlets including Scientific American, TIME, WIRED, Slate and more. He excels at explaining complex math to wide audiences and has been on national television programs discussing timely topics like AI-generated misinformation and the importance of mathematical literacy.
In a society that all too often takes from the poor and gives to the rich, math can be a vital democratizing force. Robin Hood Math helps you to think for yourself, act in your own best interests, and thrive.
Siracusa will be in conversation with Karen Saxe, Ph.D., senior vice president, government relations, for the American Mathematical Society. She is Professor Emerita at Macalester College where she served as chair of the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science.
This event is suitable for youth 12+. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.
