Dr. Joanna Chango-James’ work focuses on the neurological and behavioral processes that help people to manage emotion and solve problems in social interactions. She helps clients to understand and improve communication in negotiations, business relationships, and team settings.

An expert in the study of non-verbal communication and the emerging science of affective coding, her work has been featured in the BBC World Service, MSNBC and other media outlets. She has trained research teams around the world to detect subtle signs of emotion in human interactions using the Specific Affect Coding System, a powerful tool underlying research featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink.

Dr. Chango-James is the author of ten scientific articles in leading peer-­reviewed journals and has presented her research at numerous scientific conferences and symposia. Her methods and findings are integrative and span conflict resolution, self-­regulation, affective neuroscience, developmental psychology, and interpersonal communication. She has received a number of grants and awards for her research, including a McLean Hospital research fellowship and a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

Dr. Chango-James completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School where she examined the neural underpinnings of emotion regulation. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, and is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist.