Melikşah Demir received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan, USA) in 2007. He is currently an associate professor at Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, Arizona, USA) since then. Since his graduate school years, Demir has been conducting research on friendship and happiness in different age groups (e.g., Demir & Urberg, 2004; Demir & Weitekamp, 2007; Demir, 2010). His current research focuses on delineating the processes and mechanisms responsible for the friendship-happiness link (e.g., Demir & Ozdemir, 2010). Specifically, Melikşah Demir is testing different theoretical models that could explain why friendship is related to happiness. He also conducts cross-cultural studies to examine whether the role of friendship in happiness is similar in different cultures.