Viren swami biography of nancy

When Viren Swami, Ph.D., started his graduate work in psychology, he happened upon the Venus de Milo at Paris’s Louvre Museum. He was struck by her imperfections.

“It’s not symmetrical; she’s cracked all over the place,” he says. “She’s missing a foot.” (Not to mention both of her arms.) The Venus de Milo wasn’t always revered, Swami submits—but today she is.

Viren swami biography of nancy pelosi

What he took from the sculpture’s history: Our beauty ideals are not set in stone.

COLUMN: Can Beauty Be Measured?

It’s a fitting metaphor for Swami’s work. A Reader in Psychology at the University of Westminster in London and YouBeauty Attraction Expert, Swami has hit upon this concept in dozens of studies focused on cross-cultural standards of attractiveness.

“One of the things I’m interested in is how these ideas are really malleable,” Swami says.

“They’re not fixed in time, they’re not fixed in plac