David Sander is professor at the University of Geneva where he holds the Chair for the psychology of emotion. He studied mathematics and psychology at the University René Descartes (Paris, France), and received a PhD in Cognitive Sciences from the University Louis Lumière (Lyon, France). In 2002, he joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). He is now full professor in this Department where he directs the Laboratory for the study of Emotion Elicitation and Expression. In 2012, he has been appointed Director of the Centre Interfacultaire en Sciences Affectives (CISA), and of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) in Affective Sciences, which is located at the Campus Biotech. He directed the CISA between 2012 and 2024 when he became vice-dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education.
He is mainly interested in the brain and cognitive mechanisms involved in emotion elicitation, and how these mechanisms modulate attention, memory, and decision-making. He has published more than 150 articles and edited 6 books on these topics. For his work, he was awarded the 2013 National Latsis Prize.