Dr. Niobe Way

2024 Casey Fellow

This year's Fellow, Dr. Niobe Way, gave a compelling talk grounded in discoveries from her book Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection (Harvard University Press). Dr. Way is a professor of developmental psychology at NYU and acclaimed author whose expertise is in social and emotional development.

Drawing from hundreds of interviews with adolescents, Deep Secrets reveals the ways in which we have been telling ourselves a false story about boys, friendships, and human nature. Boys in fact do share their deepest secrets and feelings with their closest male friends — but as they become older, they can become distrustful, lose these friendships, and feel isolated and alone.

Dr. Niobe Way is a Professor of Developmental Psychology at NYU, the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH), co-founder of agapi.teens, and the PI on the Listening Project. Dr. Way was the President of the Society for Research on Adolescence, received her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, her doctoral degree from Harvard, and was an NIMH postdoctoral fellow at Yale in the psychology department.

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