Ana joins Mind & Life as the Events & Administrative Assistant. Originally from Mendoza, Argentina, she has called the Charlottesville area home since 2012.

She holds a degree in Tourism & Hospitality and brings extensive experience across those industries. Her background includes leading tours throughout South America, planning educational travel programs, and working in high-end hospitality settings. Ana also has a strong foundation in event planning, which is one of her favorite aspects of her work.

Outside of her professional life, Ana enjoys spending time with her husband and their pit bull mix, Doggy. She is passionate about running, reading, and traveling. Having visited more than 45 countries, Ana is always planning her next adventure and looks forward to continuing to explore new cultures and ways of living.

Susan W. Lane brings more than 20 years of experience in philanthropy and nonprofit leadership to her role as Director of Development at the Mind & Life Institute, including more than 15 years in higher education advancement. Her work has centered on building long-term relationships with donors, foundations, and philanthropic partners who want to support thoughtful, meaningful change.

Before joining Mind & Life, Susan held senior fundraising roles with Michigan State University, Florida International University, 1% for the Planet, and Mercy For Animals, with experience spanning major gifts, campaign strategy, donor advising, and planned giving. She is especially interested in helping people connect what they care about most with opportunities to make a real difference.

Susan has a natural curiosity about people, ideas, and the questions that sit at the intersection of science, meaning, compassion, and community. At Mind & Life, she works to grow and strengthen the philanthropic partnerships that support the Institute’s mission to bridge contemplative wisdom and science in service of human flourishing.

Mara Arizaga, PhD, is Head of the Well-Being Unit at the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR), where she has served for over a decade in roles spanning human rights, programme leadership, fellowship initiatives, and staff well-being. Her work has included engagement on racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Indigenous and Afrodescendant fellowship initiatives, Indigenous peoples’ rights, and broader questions of well-being and mental health across diverse cultural and institutional contexts.

At OHCHR, she leads United & Present, an emerging initiative exploring how contemplative practice, inner capacities, and evidence-informed approaches may contribute to human rights work, multilateral cooperation, and more human-centred institutional cultures. Since 2021, she has designed and facilitated mindfulness, resilience, and stress management programmes within the Office, helping bring context-sensitive and trauma-aware approaches into high-pressure international settings.

Prior to joining the United Nations, Mara worked in civil society and represented NGOs to the UN, leading international programmes and partnerships. She holds a PhD from the University of Bern and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. Her research focuses on contemplative traditions, cultural transmission, and global modernity. She is the author of When Meditation Goes Global and has published academic work in related fields.

She is also a certified mindfulness teacher and leadership coach, whose work lies at the intersection of contemplative practice, human rights, institutional transformation, and collective well-being.

Solei Sarmiento is a Master of Divinity Candidate at Harvard University studying integrative spiritual care through the lens of Mesoamerican Traditional Knowledge. She previously earned her bachelors at UC Berkeley in Cognitive Science.

Jesse R. Fleming is a transdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of contemplative experience, emerging technology, embodiment, and interdependent systems. He is internationally exhibited and included in major permanent collections including the Whitney Museum and Borusan Contemporary. He is a former Associate Professor and co-founder of the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska. And current founder-director of The Awareness Lab, a creative studio working to mutate fixed boundaries of self and other across cultural and applied contexts.

Nina Rao first learned sacred chants as a young girl from her grandfather in south India, and the chants stayed quietly with her until she rediscovered this powerful practice with Krishna Das in New York in 1996. Since then she has been KD’s business manager and accompanies him musically. In 1998 she met her guru, Sri Siddhi Ma, in the foothills of the Himalayas and spent time with her regularly for 19 years, while Ma was in the body. 

Nina has been chanting regularly as her main practice, has recorded albums that are widely streamed and played around the world, leads chant events, studies and shares Veda chanting and spiritual texts, is a hospice volunteer, is a podcast host for Be Here Now Network, goes on yatra (pilgrimage), and is a wildlife conservationist as chairperson for Saving Wild Tigers, and hopes that everyone will make a Homegrown National Park in their home by planting native species. Nina has previously released two solo albums ‘Antaryaami’ and ‘Anubhav’, and along with the 21 Taras Collective Mantra Mala Vol. 1in 2025. She is releasing her much-anticipated third album ‘Bhumi Devi’ in 2026. Nina co-hosted and released along with 10 women wisdom leaders, the audio course and program “Sita’s Gems”, lifting Sita Devi from victim to heroine of the Ramayana.

Dr. Damon T. Berry’s research focuses on the imbrication of religious and racialized discourses that shape and inform ideologies and practices of exclusion and violence. He has published in several venues on topics such as religion and violence and the history of racist movements. He has written three monographs: Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism, Christianity & The Alt-Right: Exploring the Relationship, and most recently, The New Apostolic Reformation, Trump, and Evangelical Politics.