Lara Merriken

Lara Merriken (Master of Applied Positive Psychology ’23) always thought of herself as a positive person. Believing in hers and others’ strengths created a throughline in her careers—from working as a social worker with at-risk youth, to founding LÄRABAR, to serving as an adviser after the company’s acquisition by a Fortune 500 corporation. “Human flourishing is what I’ve always been about,” she says. Although Lara studied psychology as an undergraduate, she first heard of positive psychology at her son’s school, where she is a board member. “I wrote the word down and thought, ‘What is positive psychology? That sounds really interesting,’” she recalls. “I don't know what it looks like, but I just know I want to be a part of it.” Lara found a way to become a part of it in the Foundations of Positive Psychology specialization on Coursera, and then was accepted to Penn’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP). “MAPP enhanced my world exponentially—in my life, my family, my friendships, and community,” she says. “It also opened up a whole new professional chapter for me that I wasn’t expecting.”

In the MAPP program, Lara found a welcoming and inspiring community. “What stood out to me was how incredibly supportive all the professors and assistant instructors are. As an adult learner, it's very different to come back to a learning environment—especially an environment like MAPP—and see how beautifully curated it is and how much everybody cares,” she recalls. Although the coursework was rigorous and the prospect of writing graduate-level papers was daunting, Lara was able to stay motivated by talking to her classmates and instructors about the challenges. “The entire community is incredibly nurturing. It really made a difference, because you felt that you weren’t alone,” she adds.

Lara also found inspiration in her home and family life. “First and foremost, I am a parent,” she says. “Everything I learned in MAPP relates to things I think about in terms of parenting and my son’s well-being. In the bigger picture, the program has helped me consider the things I need to talk to him about as he gets ready for college—relationships, positive emotions, meaning, and purpose.” She recalls a particularly meaningful class assignment for which she wrote a positive psychology paper to her son. “I outlined each section of the PERMA model and explained it to him. It was an academic paper—there were citations!—but he was in eighth grade at the time, so I wrote it in a way that he could understand,” she says. “This summer, I asked him if he remembered the paper, and he sat down and reread it. So it’s a gift that keeps on giving, that I could take this incredible research and information about human flourishing and pass that directly to my child.”

As she completed her studies, Lara realized how many threads connected her positive psychology studies to her past professional experiences in psychology, entrepreneurship, and parenthood. “While I grew my company LÄRABAR, I learned the importance of being a collaborative leader,” she reflects. “And whether I was a social worker or making Lärabars, it was to bring better things to people's lives, to help them live more flourishing lives.” She wanted to bring it all together for her final degree requirement, so her capstone project took the form of a proposal for a book exploring the tenets of positive psychology that influenced her career as an entrepreneur and advisor.

After graduation, Lara took a backpacking trip to Iceland to celebrate her achievement. When she returned, she decided to jump back into positive psychology with both feet and enrolled in a program to become a certified coach. “I was basically semi-retired,” she laughs, “and now I get to talk to people and help people in this realm all day, every day. And that's wonderful. To me, it's my way of contributing to make the world a better place.” In this new chapter of her professional life, Lara teamed up with a peer from the MAPP program, Jon Rosemberg. “We started talking about how we could align our respective business backgrounds and create a coaching and immersive learning organization to help people in the business world—and beyond, really—to tap into the tenets of human flourishing.” They started Anther  with the intent to offer the knowledge they acquired to individuals and organizations globally. “The anther is the part of the flower that spreads pollen,” Lara explains. “We see ourselves as positive pollinators and we want our contributions to make the world a better place.”

Getting this new initiative up and running meant putting her book project on hold, but Lara is ready to bring her focus back to her positive psychology memoir—and enrolled in a writing workshop to help support her process. “I’m using what I learned from MAPP,” she says. “You have to surround yourself with people who support you.”

Lara advises new and prospective students to make the most of the nurturing MAPP network of learners and teachers around the world. “The community has become a huge part of my life. I wasn’t expecting that. I just came in thinking that I want to learn all this amazing information with the leading positive psychology researchers of the world—and what an honor to be able to do that,” she says. “And then, in addition to that, there are all these incredible people that I met. When they come together for MAPP, it’s like music. It’s like a symphony.”

Learn more about Lara’s service learning project experience in Learning through service: How MAPP students created a roadmap to resilience for public servants.