Helen Fisher, PhD, Biological Anthropologist, is a Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and Chief Science Advisor to the Internet dating site Match.com. She has conducted extensive research and written six books on the evolution and future of human sex, love, marriage, gender differences in the brain and how your personality style shapes who you are and who you love. She is currently using her knowledge of brain chemistry to discuss the neuroscience of team building, business leadership and innovation.
Helen Fisher died, peacefully at home, on August 17th, 2024. The cause was endometrial cancer. Despite growing weak in her final weeks in hospice care, she completed her manuscript for a book about her personality research, Thinking Four Ways: How to Connect With Anyone Using Neuroscience, and submitted it five days before her death. It will be published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf and in more than a dozen foreign editions.
The New York Times published an obituary on August 22, 2024.
Obituaries have been published in The Economist, The Times of London, and The Telegraph, and her career was featured in The Economist's podcast, The Intelligence, on August 30th.
Tributes to her life and work have been published by the Kinsey Institute and at Nautilus and YourTango.
Helen's Four Foundational Personality Styles
In 2005, Match.com invited Dr. Helen Fisher to identify the biological foundation of personality. When she discovered a lack of data in modern scientific literature, she undertook a deep dive into peer-reviewed research in genetic, biological, pharmaceutical, neuroscience, and other medical fields.
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Lovestruck: What Would Dr. Fisher Do?
The WoMed Podcast February 17, 2023 It’s V-Day-Week! Your hosts are joined once again by sex scientist and one of Match.com’s Chief Scientific Advisors, Dr. Helen Fisher, to discuss personality styles and dating trends! She explains the 4 personality styles she’s identified and discusses the quiz that they all (and even Michael — and 15 million other people) took to figure out their style. Considered a TED All-Star, Dr. Fisher has over 21 million views on her talks, and today offers insight on new dating trends she’s seen from her annual Singles in America study. The 2022 study included questions about Roe v. Wade and inflation, which had notable results on people’s approach to dating. Speaking of love, Dani is on the move to Cleveland to be with Michael, and Jac may just have someone special that we get a little V-Day update on. Listen on Apple PodcastsBooks
Helen Fisher, Ph.D., is one of America’s most prominent anthropologists and the author of six internationally best-selling books on the science of romantic love, attachment, adultery, divorce, and the evolution and future of human family life. She is currently also studying the biological basis of personality and how to use brain science to build teams, spark innovation, lead more effectively and “win friends and influence people” at work, love and life.