Stephen W. Porges
Psychologist and psychophysiology researcher
Stephen W. Porges is an American psychologist who, in 1994, proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a framework for how autonomic nervous system states shape behavior.
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American Born 1945 in New Brunswick, United States
About Stephen W. Porges
Stephen W. Porges was born in 1945 and works in psychophysiology. He has held professorships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Illinois Chicago and the University of Maryland. In Chicago he directed the Brain-Body Center at the College of Medicine. He has also led the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium at Indiana University Bloomington, a research group focused on trauma. He has served as president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences. Porges has authored over 400 peer-reviewed journal articles spanning many fields. His Polyvagal Theory draws on evolutionary biology and neurophysiology, and it has been influential in clinical settings, although some social neuroscientists have challenged parts of it. He is the author of The Polyvagal Theory and coauthor of Our Polyvagal World.