Matthew D. Della Porta is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside and is a member of Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky’s Positive Psychology Laboratory. He received his B.A. from the University of Rochester in 2006 with high honors in research in psychology, and his M.A. from the University of California, Riverside in 2009.

Matthew currently works as a researcher and teaching assistant. His research in social/personality psychology is on the strategies people can use to become happier for a sustained period of time. He is particularly interested in how and why these strategies are effective and how they can be implemented in educational, business or other organizational settings.

When Matthew isn’t in the laboratory, he enjoys mindfulness meditation, playing the drums and piano, and surfing. He currently resides in Riverside, California with his wife and two cats.