Neuroscientists who study our brains on happiness tend to agree that a key ingredient for one's own contentment is helping others.

As the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus famously told a room full of Forbes 400 billionaires, "Making money is a happiness. Making other people happy is a super-happiness."

We are all in need of a little happiness and a little inspiration lately, so we've devoted this issue of the magazine to stories of just a few of the many UConn faculty, staff, students, and alumni who spend their days doing good in the world, making it a better place for all of us.

These folks are called to their vocations because they are passionate about what they do and about making a difference — it just so happens that doing so may be making them happier in the process. We know that reading and writing about them made all of us just a little bit happier, too. And we hope you share that feeling.