Advancing the Science of Meaning, Motivation, and Behavior
The Valence Foundation is a nonprofit research organization dedicated to advancing the Valence Field Model (VFM), a mathematically grounded theoretical framework describing how meaning is constructed, weighted, and transferred across scales of human behavior and cognition. Founded in 2026 in Wisconsin, the Foundation pursues three integrated missions: scientific publication, ethical application, and community benefit.
The VFM is a formal model that generates falsifiable predictions across psychology, neuroscience, clinical intervention, organizational dynamics, and artificial intelligence. The model's formal structure and applications are described in forthcoming scientific papers.
The VFM generates a clinical intervention architecture grounded in formal dynamics rather than diagnostic categories. Applications include trait-based assessment, capacity-first treatment sequencing, and fragmentation detection in depression and identity disorders.
The VFM provides a formal architecture for understanding social decision-making, trust dynamics, and coupling between agents. The framework generates testable predictions about individual differences in social cognition and their clinical implications, with applications to populations including borderline personality disorder, psychosis, and trauma-related conditions.
The VFM architecture offers a novel approach to AI alignment monitoring based on the model's formal structure. Unlike behavioral testing approaches that evaluate only external outputs, VFM-based monitoring addresses alignment at a structural level. Details are described in forthcoming publications.
The VFM's formal structure suggests novel approaches to computational efficiency in AI systems, with potential implications for the energy and resource consumption of global AI infrastructure. Details are described in forthcoming publications.
The Valence Foundation exists to advance scientific understanding of how meaning and motivation work, and to ensure that this understanding benefits those who need it most.
Founder and President
Pediatric neuropsychologist. Developer of the Valence Field Model. Over 30 years of clinical experience with children and adolescents. Training at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of Chicago, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, and Texas Children's Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine.