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Faculty

Adam Anderson received his BA in cognitive science at Vassar College, PhD in cognitive psychology at Yale University, and post-doctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford University. He is co-director of the Affect and Cognition Laboratory at the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Affective Neuroscience and is a research associate at the Rotman Research Institute. In 2009 he was awarded with the Ministry of Research and Innovation Early Career Award and the American Psychological Association early career award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience. His work is broadly concerned with the psychological and neural underpinnings of the emotions, from their facial and neural expression to their interactions with cognitive processes such as attention and memory. reading list

Dr. Kalina Christoff is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department and the Brain Research Centre at UBC. Before taking her position at UBC, Dr. Christoff completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience at Stanford University, followed by postdoctoral training at Cambridge, UK. Dr. Christoff's work focuses on the neural and cognitive mechanisms of human thought, reasoning and problem solving, using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). She is widely known for her work on a part of the prefrontal cortex in humans known as the anterior prefrontal cortex, which she has shown is involved in some of the uniquely human mental abilities such as introspective thinking and higher order reasoning. Dr. Christoff is the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Thought Laboratory at UBC, one of the few fMRI laboratories world-wide to specifically focus on the neural mechanisms of human thought, and the only laboratory in Canada that examines brain activation using a novel, cutting-edge methodology known as real-time fMRI, which allows immediate and concurrent observation of brain activation. reading list

J. David Creswell is an experimental health psychologist and assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received his PhD from UCLA in social and health psychology, and advanced training in psychoneuroimmunology and neuroimaging as a post-doctoral fellow in the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Creswell’s work consists of examining basic models of stress and coping, and stress reduction. Specifically, his Health and Human Performance Laboratory examines mechanisms of mindfulness meditation, including central and peripheral stress pathways in healthy and patient populations. These studies employ a variety of experimental measures, including stress hormones, neuroimaging, self-report psychosocial measures, genetic markers, and various measures of immune function. Creswell has been a mindfulness meditation practitioner for 8 years, and has studied in a variety of Therevadan traditions. reading list

Wil Cunningham studies social and affective phenomenon from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. Currently, his work concerns the psychological and neural processes by which people generate emotional responses and value judgments – and how these processes can give rise to adaptive or maladaptive behavioral responses. To better understand these processes, his lab uses methods and theories from both social psychology (e.g., models of attitudes and latency-based evaluation measures) and cognitive neuroscience (e.g., biological models of emotion and fMRI/EEG methods). By using the “toolboxes” of each discipline with their distinct strengths and weaknesses, a more complete picture of emotion is likely to emerge. This work suggests that evaluative states are constructed moment to moment from multiple component processes that integrate relevant information from various sources such as automatically activated attitudes and situational contexts. He completed both his B.A. and M.A. at the College of William & Mary (1995/1998), and his Ph.D. in social and cognitive psychology at Yale University (2003). Between 2004 and 2006, he was an assistant professor in the psychology department at the University of Toronto and an associate scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. Wil is currently an assistant professor of psychology at The Ohio State University. reading list

Richard J. Davidson is the William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Director of the W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience and the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology and has been at Wisconsin since 1984. He has published more than 250 articles, many chapters and reviews and edited 13 books. He has been a member of the Mind & LIfe Institute’s Board of Directors since 1991. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his research including a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Award, a MERIT Award from NIMH, an Established Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders (NARSAD), a Distinguished Investigator Award from NARSAD, the William James Fellow Award from the American Psychological Society, and the Hilldale Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was the Founding Co-Editor of the new American Psychological Association journal EMOTION and is Past-President of the Society for Research in Psychopathology and of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. He was the year 2000 recipient of the most distinguished award for science given by the American Psychological Association –the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. In 2003 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2004 he was elected to the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2006. In 2006 he was also awarded the first Mani Bhaumik Award by UCLA for advancing the understanding of the brain and conscious mind in healing. Madison Magazine named him Person of the Year in 2007.    reading list

Dr. Sona Dimidjian is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research addresses the treatment and prevention of depression, including a particular focus on the mental health of women during pregnancy and postpartum. She is a leading expert in cognitive and behavioral approaches to treating and preventing depression and has a longstanding interest in the clinical application of mindfulness and contemplative practices. Currently, she is conducting research on the use of meditative practices, including mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and loving kindness practice, with pregnant and postpartum women at high risk of depressive relapse.

Georges Dreyfus spent fifteen years in Buddhist monasteries before receiving, in 1985, the title of Geshe, the highest degree conferred by Tibetan monastic universities. He then entered the University of Virginia where he received an M.A. and Ph.D. in the History of Religions program. He is currently Professor of Religion of the Department of Religion at Williams College. He has published 5 books, including Recognizing Reality: Dharmakirti and his Tibetan Interpreters (1997) and The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: the Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk (2002), and many articles on various aspects of Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan culture. He has been chair of the Religion department at Williams College and chair of the Tibetan and Himalayan Religions group of the American Academy of Religion. He is the recipient of various awards such as a National Endowment for the Humanities. reading list

John D. Dunne, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Religion at Emory University, where he is Co-Director of the Encyclopedia of Contemplative Practices and the Emory Collaborative for Contemplative Studies. He was educated at the Amherst College and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. from the Committee on the Study of Religion in 1999. Before joining Emory’s faculty in 2005, he taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and held a research position at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Support from the American Institute of Indian Studies sustained two years of his doctoral research at the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India. His work focuses on various aspects of Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice. In Foundations of Dharmakirti’s Philosophy (2004), he examines the most prominent Buddhist theories of perception, language, inference and justification. His current research includes an inquiry into the notion of “mindfulness” in both classical Buddhist and contemporary contexts, and he is also engaged in a study of Candrakirti’s “Prasannapada”, a major Buddhist philosophical work on the metaphysics of “emptiness” and "selflessness." His recently published work includes an essay on neuroscience and meditation co-authored with Richard J. Davidson and Antoine Lutz. He frequently serves as a translator for Tibetan scholars, and as a consultant, he appears on the roster of several ongoing scientific studies of Buddhist contemplative practices. reading list

Shaun Gallagher is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences, and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida (USA); he also holds a position as Research Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Hertfordshire (UK). He has been Visiting Professor at the Ecole Normale Supériure, Lyon, and the University of Copenhagen, and Visiting Scientist at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge. His research is focused on embodied cognition and intersubjectivity. His recent books include How the Body Shapes the Mind (OUP 2005), Brainstorming (Imprint Academic 2008), and with Dan Zahavi, The Phenomenological Mind (Routledge 2007). He is also the author of The Inordinance of Time (Northwestern 1998) and Hermeneutics and Education (SUNY 1992). He is co-editor of the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, and recently co-edited Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? An Investigation of the Nature of Volition (MIT 2006). reading list

Sherryl H. Goodman received her Ph.D. in Psychology (Clinical) in 1978 from the University of Waterloo under the mentorship of Dr. Donald Meichenbaum, one of the founders of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. She is a Professor in the Department of Psychology with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Her research interests, grounded in the field of developmental psychopathology, primarily concern the mechanisms by which mothers with depression may transmit psychopathology to their children. She is currently directing research on: (a) maternal depression as an early life stress for infants; (b) vulnerabilities to depression in preschool aged children of depressed mothers; (c) the development of a measure of children’s perceptions of parental sadness, (d) women’s narratives on their experiences of parenting with depression, and (e) the development of MBCT interventions to prevent perinatal depression among women who have been depressed prior to the pregnancy. Her work is dedicated to the integration of science and practice in the field of clinical psychology. Sherryl has practiced yoga for several years, began a meditation practice in December of 2006, and attended Zindel Segal’s MBCT week long workshop during summer of 2007. reading list

Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She is Founder, Co-abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Director of the Upaya Institute. She received her Ph.D in medical anthropology in 1973. She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions, including Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, University of Virginia Medical School, Duke University Medical School, University of Connecticut Medical School, among many others. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, and was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University, and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow and Kluge Scholar at the Library of Congress. From 1972-1975, she worked with psychiatrist Stanislav Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center on pioneering work with dying cancer patients. She has continued to work with dying people and their families and to teach health care professionals as well as lay individuals on contemplative care of the dying. Her work for forty years has focused on engaged and applied Buddhism. She is a Board Member of the Mind & LIfe Institute. The author of many books, including "Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death," Dr. Halifax founded the Project on Being with Dying and the Upaya Prison Project reading list
Photo: Chris Richards

Alfred W. Kaszniak received his Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and completed an internship in clinical neuropsychology at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago. He is currently Head of the Department of Psychology, Director of Clinical Neuropsychology, Director of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Education Core, and a professor in the departments of psychology, neurology, and psychiatry at The University of Arizona. His research,published in over 150 journal articles, chapters and books, has been supported by grants from the NIH, NIMH, and several private foundations. His work has focused on the neuropsychology of Alzheimer’s disease, age-related neurological disorders, memory self-monitoring, and the biological bases of emotion, and emotion response and regulation in long-term meditators. Dr. Kaszniak has served on the editorial boards of several journals in neuropsychology and the psychology of aging, has been an advisor to several national institutes and agencies concerned with aging and Alzheimer's disease. He is a Past-President of the Section on Clinical Geropsychology of the American Psychological Association.

Barry Kerzin is a Buddhist monk, teacher, doctor, and former professor of medicine. He has lived in Dharamsala for 20 years. He provides medical care to many high lamas and poor people in India. In between he has done many short and long meditation retreats. At both the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Princeton University he has participated as a subject for research on long-term meditation practitioners. Great fortune has allowed him to care for three great meditation masters during their final days and tukdam, or clear light meditation, after cessation of the heart beat and respiration. With fresh and warm bodies the atmosphere was joyous and peaceful. He also teaches Buddhism in India, Japan, North America, and Europe.

Nawang Khechog was ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk at the age of 13. Later he became a hermit meditator for 4 years , during which he was personally sponsored , guided and cared for by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The last 30 years he has been taking public teachings from H.H. the Dalai Lama and he also personally studied from the late Gen Yeshe Topden (renowned hermit meditator) and Kyabje Lati Rinpoche. Today Nawang lives in Boulder, Colorado with his wife. He is a Grammy nominee and one of the foremost Tibetan composers and musicians in the field of meditation and spiritual music. His last album “Tibetan Meditation Music” climbed to #9 on the Billboard chart in 2008. Nawang also served as one of the consultants and guides for the spiritual and meditation video game called “Wild Divine Journey.” As a Tibetan living in exile for the last 50 years (since 1959) Nawang’s one primary work is to serve H. H. the Dalai Lama for the freedom of the tibetan people and the preservation of its civilization and culture, which is rooted in non-violence and compassion but threatened with genocide by China’s policy and massive migration. He has toured the world to generate awareness and support for the Tibetan cause for more than 20 years. Nawang also offers workshops on Awakening Kindness, and introduction to the essence of Buddha’s teachings on wisdom and compassion. He prefers to teach just as a spiritual friend and does not consider himself a “lama.” Simon & Schuster will publish his first book in the fall of 2010. www.nawangkhechog.com

Anne Klein teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Rice, which she chaired from 1995-1998. She mainly teaches courseson Buddhist thought, Tibetan language,and contemplative studies. Her Department is developing a graduate concentration incontemplative studies. She is Co-founding Director and Resident Reacher of Dawn Mountain Tibetan Temple, Community Center and Research Institute, a center for contemplative study and practice in Houston. (www.dawnmountain.org) In addition to her graduate work in Buddhist and Religious Studies at the Universities of Wisconsin and Virginia, she has since 1974 studied with, and continues to learn from, renowned Tibetan scholars and meditation masters, sometimes in the US, sometimes in Asia. She has studied, practiced in, and translated works from three of the five major Tibetan traditions. Her recent and forthcoming books are under the auspices of a Ford Foundation grant on the living dialogue between traditional Buddhism and modern Western Culture. In that same spirit, she was a panelist in the 2005 Stanford Symposium on Neuroscience and Buddhism presided over by HH the Dalai Lama, the first time she had the honor to be part of this conversation. Dr. Klein's books include Knowledge & Liberation, Path to the Middle and, most recently, with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Unbounded Wholeness: Dzogchen, Bon and the Logic of the Nonconceptual. Her book of chantable verse translations of daily recitations, Heart Essence, The Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission is due out this summer. She is working also on The Knowing Body. reading list

Dorothée Legrand is a researcher at the Center for Research in Applied Epistemology (CNRS, Ecole polytechnique, Paris, France). She is trained in psychology and cognitive neurosciences (master’s) and received her Ph.D. in philosophy and epistemology in 2004. She has been a post-doctoral fellow (European "Marie Curie" fellowship) at the Center for Subjectivity research, Copenhagen, Denmark (directed by Dan Zahavi). Her work in focused on the notion of selfhood and subjectivity. Her methodology is akin to neurophenomenology as she integrates in a mutually constraining and enriching dialogue investigations issued from philosophy (mostly phenomenology) and cognitive sciences (mostly cognitive neuroscience). She is currently collaborating with philosophers (Evan Thompson, Joel Krueger), cognitive neuroscientists and neurologists (Perrine Ruby, Diego Cosmelli, Olaf Blanke, Bigna Lenggenhager, Simone Bosbach, Nicole David,) and a researcher in dance, movement communication and performance activities (Susanne Ravn). The list of her publications and communications can be found on her homepage (http://dorotheelegrand.googlepages.com/). reading list

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche is a Buddhist monk; Acharya, Sampurnanada Sanskrit University, Varanasi; Dip. Tibetology, Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, Sikkim, Lobpon Chenpo Research Degree by Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism; Karabjampa and Khenpo title conferred by Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. Ringu Tulku was recognized as a Tulku of Rigul Monastery in Kham at an early age and trained by various masters of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism including H. H. the 16th Karmapa and H. H. Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche. He worked as a Tibetan textbook writer under the Government of Sikkim for 8 years and Lecturer and Head of the Department, Sikkim Government College, for 17 years. Since 1990 he has traveled and taught Buddhism and meditation for 6 months a year. He has been a visiting faculty member of Naropa University. He is the founder and Spiritual Director of Bodhicharya Centers and groups and Rigul Trust and Rigul Foundation. Among his publications are a series of complete Tibetan Textbooks for the schools of Sikkim; Tibetan Grammar and Composition; Lazy Lama series, Heart Wisdom Series; Path to Buddhahood; Daring Steps Towards Fearlessness; Mind Training and Rime Philosophy of Kongtrul the Great.

Robert W. Roeser is an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Applied Psychology at Portland State University and the Senior Program Coordinator for the Mind & LIfe Institute. He received his Ph.D. from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan (1996) and holds master’s degrees in religion and psychology, developmental psychology and clinical social work. In 2005 he was a United States Fulbright Scholar in India, and from 1999-2004 he was a William T. Grant Faculty Scholar.
Dr. Roeser’s research focuses primarily on how schools, as central cultural contexts of human development, affect both academic (motivation to learn) and non-academic aspects (self/identity, well-being) of “whole persons” across childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. Currently, Dr. Roeser is studying how the introduction of developmentally and cultural appropriate contemplative practices (i.e., mindfulness meditation) into mainstream schools may prove to be a novel way of reducing stress, enhancing well-being, strengthening motivation and self-regulatory capacity, and cultivating clear and compassionate forms of awareness among educators and students alike. reading list

Perrine Ruby is a researcher in Cognitive Neuroscience in the lab of Olivier Bertand INSERM U821 "Brain dynamics and cognition", Lyon, France. Her main topics of interest are social cognition (theory of mind, self , default mode of the brain, emotion), cognition during sleep and dreaming. She is adressing these issues both with behavioural and neuroimaging technics (PET, fMRI, intra and scalp EEG). She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 2002 for a work entitled " Distinction between first- and third-person perspective - neurophysiological correlates in humans.” From 2002-2005, she was a post-doc in the Cyclotron Research Center of Liège where she worked with Pierre Maquet on the role of sleep in memory (behaviour and fMRI) and Eric Salmon on perspective taking in patients with neurodegenerative diseases (Frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease, behaviour and PET). In 2005 she gained a permanent researcher position in the lab of Olivier Bertand and started a research projet on dreaming. http://perrine.ruby.googlepages.com/       reading list

Sharon Salzberg is one of America’s leading meditation teachers and authors and has been a student of Buddhism since 1971. She has been leading meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. She teaches both intensive awareness practice (vipassana or insight meditation) and the profound cultivation of lovingkindness and compassion (the Brahma Viharas). She is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Sharon's latest book is The Kindness Handbook published by Sounds True. She is also the author of The Force of Kindness, published by Sounds True; Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience published by Riverhead Books; Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness and A Heart as Wide as the World, both published by Shambhala Publications; and co-author with Joseph Goldstein of Insight Meditation, a Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate (audio) from Sounds True. She has edited Voices of Insight, an anthology of writings by vipassana teachers in the West, also published by Shambhala. Sharon Salzberg has played a crucial role in bringing Asian meditation practices to the West. The ancient Buddhist practices of vipassana (mindfulness) and metta (lovingkindness) are the foundations of her work. "Each of us has a genuine capacity for love, forgiveness, wisdom and compassion. Meditation awakens these qualities so that we can discover for ourselves the unique happiness that is our birthright." For more information about Sharon, please visit: www.SharonSalzberg.com.       reading list

Emma Seppala is a Ph.D candidate in Psychology at Stanford University. She received her B.A. from Yale University and her M.A. in Buddhist Studies from Columbia University. After receiving a Francisco J. Varela grant from the Mind & LIfe Research Institute, Emma has focused her dissertation research at Stanford on the behavioral correlates of Loving-Kindness meditation.  She will complete her Ph.D in the summer of 2009 and will be joining the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a post-doctoral research fellow to work with Richie Davidson as of the Fall. Emma is also a certified yoga instructor and has loved teaching yoga at the Mind & LIfe Summer Research Institute for the past three years. She is also a certified breathing/meditation instructor with the Art of Living Foundation and enjoys teaching in high schools, on university campuses, as well as with military veterans.   

Sensei Beate Genko Stolte is a Zen teacher and the first Dharma successor of Roshi Joan Halifax in the lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi. Born in Germany, she has practiced Zen for more than 20 years and was priest-ordained in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi (“Zen Mind, Beginners Mind”). She has an MBA and a master's degree in fiscal law. She has lived, practiced, and taught in Zen Buddhist communities in the United States, Switzerland and Germany and visited Japan for Zen Buddhist studies. As a co-founder of a German Buddhist Study Center, she served as president of the board for ten years as well as director. Sensei Beate Genko Stolte is currently the co-abbot of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe and teaches in the USA and Europe.   reading list

Timothy J. Strauman is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. Professor Strauman's research interests center upon psychological processes of self-regulation, conceptualized in terms of a cognitive/motivational perspective, as well as the relation between self-regulation and affect and how such processes might contribute to psychopathology. Within this general domain, particular areas of emphasis include: conceptualizing self-regulation in terms of basic self/brain/behavior motivational systems; the role of self-regulatory processes in vulnerability to depression and other disorders; the impact of psychotherapy on self-regulatory function and dysfunction in depression; how normative and non-normative socialization patterns influence the development of individual differences in self-regulation; the contributory roles of self-regulation, affect, and psychopathology in determining immunologically-mediated susceptibility to illness; development of a brief structured psychotherapy for depression targeting self-regulatory dysfunction; the use of brain imaging techniques to test hypotheses concerning self-regulation, including the nature and function of hypothetical regulatory systems and characterizing the breakdowns in self-regulation that lead to and accompany depression. Professor Strauman's clinical interests follow from his program of research. Specifically, he is interested in learning how psychotherapy remediates disorders such as depression and whether psychotherapy is effective at reducing risk for relapse and recurrence of emotional disorders. His lab's clinically focused research includes the development of a new self-regulation-based therapy for depression and the use of neuroimaging techniques to examine the mechanisms of action of treatments for depression. Professor Strauman is a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. reading list

Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He received his B.A. from Amherst College in Asian Studies, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. He is the author of Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2007 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/THOMIN.html), and the co-editor (with P. Zelazo and M. Moscovitch) of The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2007) He is also the co-author with F.J. Varela and E. Rosch of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991) and the author of Color Vision:  A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (Routledge Press, 1995). He is currently  working on a new book, titled Waking, Dreaming, Being: New Revelations about the Self from Neuroscience and Meditation. Thompson held a Canada Research Chair at York University (2002-2005), and has also taught at Boston University. He has held visiting positions at the Centre de Récherch en Epistémologie Appliqué (CREA) at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is a member of the Mind & LIfe Institute's Program and Research Committee. http://www.individual.utoronto.ca/evant   reading list

David Vago, Ph.D., Senior Research Coordinator, Mind & LIfe Institute, is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. He received his B.S. in brain & cognitive sciences from the University of Rochester and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in cognitive and neural sciences from the Department of Psychology, University of Utah. While a post-doctoral research associate at the Utah Center for Exploring Mind-Body Interactions, David received the Francisco J. Varela award for his clinical and brain imaging studies investigating the effects of mindfulness training on cognitive and emotional processing in fibromyalgia. David’s research interests broadly focus on the neurobiological substrates of cognitive and emotional control in the context of learning and memory processes. His current research has a particular focus on fronto-limbic modulation across the neuropsychiatric spectrum. reading list

Acharya Pema Wangyal was admitted to TSC Monastery in 1987 (Drukpa Kargyud lineage, Darjeeling). There he received complete ordination according to the same tradition. He studied performance of rituals, Buddhist philosophy and practiced Ngodro Preliminary retreat with several masters. He received transmission and the initiations in the same lineage from the late Master Singdrak Rinpoche. In 1999 he was admitted to the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, Varanasi, U.P. India. There he studied Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan, English and Sanskrit languages, and Tibetan history. At this institute besides his studies he undertook other obligations. In 2002 he was a member of Voluntary Social Service and participated in many social activities. In 2004 he was elected as the Chanting Master of Kargyud Relief fund and Protection Committee for the tenure of one year. In the same year he graduated from the Tibetan University. Thereafter he was appointed as a (Kyorpon) ‘prefect’ at the same monastery in Darjeeling. In 2005 he was given the title Khenpo at Drubgyud Tendar Choeling monastery by Langna Rinpoche and other dignitaries of the monastery. On September 4, 2006 he was selected as the representative of Kargyud School at the Tibet Institute Rikon in Switzerland and since then he has been actively engaged in the context of Science Meets Dharma project under the supervision of H. H. The Dalai Lama. In the orientation of the Science Meets Dharma project he has studied physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, psychology and astronomy. Now he is a Buddhist teacher in Rikon, Switzerland.

Ed Watkins is Professor of Experimental and Applied Clinical Psychology at the School of Psychology, University of Exeter and co-founder/co-director of the Mood Disorders Centre, University of Exeter. He trained at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, and then held a joint research position between the Institute of Psychiatry and the Medical Research Council – Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. He has specialist clinical training and expertise in cognitive therapy for depression. He currently works as a researcher, teacher, clinical practitioner and co-director of the Mood Disorders Centre, a partnership between the University of Exeter and Devon Partnership NHS Trust, specialising in psychological research and treatment for depression.
His research programme focuses on rumination, defined as unhelpful repetitive thought about self, problems, mistakes and losses, utilising both experimental methods to understand its mechanisms and clinical process-outcome research to translate these experimental findings into improved psychological interventions. His research has been funded by the Wellcome Trust, UK Medical Research Council and a NARSAD Young Investigators Award. Key contributions include demonstrating that there may be distinct types of self-focused rumination with distinct functional effects (more abstract-conceptual processing style = unhelpful; more concrete-experiential processing style = helpful, e.g., Watkins, 2008); developing and evaluating a modified version of CBT designed to explicitly target rumination in residual depression; and involvement in randomized controlled trial of mindfulness-based CBT as a relapse prevention treatment for depression. Prof Watkins was awarded the British Psychological Society's May Davidson Award of 2004 for outstanding early-career contributions to the development of clinical psychology. reading list

Philip David Zelazo received his Honours B.A. from McGill in 1988 and his Ph.D. (with distinction) from Yale in 1993. From 1992-2007, he taught at the University of Toronto, where he held the Canada Research Chair in Developmental Neuroscience. He is currently the Nancy M. and John L. Lindahl Professor at the Institute of Child Development at University of Minnesota. He is also the Co-Director of the Sino-Canadian Centre for Research in Child Development, at Southwest University, China. Professor Zelazo’s research, which centers on the development and neural bases of executive function (or the conscious control of thought, action, and emotion), has been honored by numerous awards, including a Boyd McCandless Young Scientist Award from the American Psychological Association, a Premier’s Research Excellence Award from the Government of Ontario, and a Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Jean Piaget Society, and he is a member of several editorial boards (Child Development, Emotion, Cognitive Development, Journal of Cognition and Development, Psyche, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, and Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development). He is also the co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (Zelazo, Moscovitch, Thompson, 2007), and the editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology. reading list

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