Sacramento State’s first-ever professor of happiness unlocks the mysteries surrounding what is arguably the holy grail of human emotion. As Prof. Meliksah Demir explains, the path to joy is a winding road and the journey requires a bit of effort, but in the end, we all have the tools we need to find our happy place.

In 2018, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and then-West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon launched the Mayors’ Commission on Climate Change to develop a comprehensive strategy for helping their cities achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. Anne Stausboll, the retired CEO of CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System), was tapped to lead the effort. In addition to heading up the largest public pension fund in the United States from 2009 to 2016, she served a decade as chair of the Boston-head-quartered nonprofit Ceres, which seeks to combat climate change through financial markets. The 19-person climate commission presented its findings to the Sacramento City Council last August, unanimously adopting a report Stausboll calls “ambitious” in its recommendations.

Growing up in Flint, Michigan, Megan Van Voorhis wanted to be a ballerina like the one she saw twirling on an episode of Sesame Street. It wasn’t until she took a business administration class in college that she realized her calling wasn’t to make art, but to make art possible. As the head of Arts Cleveland, she introduced innovative programs linking art with health care and helping creators access their inner entrepreneurs. As Sacramento’s freshly appointed Cultural and Creative Economy Manager, the former dancer takes the stage for her next act. Here the new 916 resident talks about the arts’ influence on the GDP, how to reopen venues safely in the age of Covid, and why the ability to create is a basic human right.