Today our guest is Xiaomeng Xu, who allow others to call her Mona, and also goes by Professor X for her students as her name is tricky to pronounce. Mona was born in Fuling, China and immigrated to the United States at age 5. Raised in New York City, she graduated in psychology from NYU and got her PhD from Stony Brook University.  Now she's an associate professor of psychology at Idaho State University, researching behavioral health, close relationships—especially romantic relationships—and teaching. She also has been involved in fascinating research with brain scans and how human beings respond to novel experiences. I tracked her down when I was writing my book HappiNest because I wanted to tap her knowledge regarding the impact of novelty on  novelty on the quality of close relationships.