Jay Van Bavel is a Professor of Psychology & Neural Science at New York University, an affiliate at the Stern School of Business in Management and Organizations, Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics, and Director of the Center for Conflict & Cooperation. He is also an Associate Editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus. Jay completed his PhD at the University of Toronto and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Ohio State University.
Jay studies how collective concerns—group identities, moral values, and political beliefs—shape the mind, brain, and behavior. His work addresses issues of group identity, social motivation, intergroup conflict & polarization, cooperation, beliefs & misinformation, moral judgment & decision-making, social media, and public health using a wide variety of methods.
Jay has published over 150 academic papers (including in Science, Nature, PNAS) and is a Clarivate highly cited researcher (in the top 1% of researchers worldwide). He co-authored The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony (winner of the APA William James Book Award). His work has also been cited in the US Supreme Court and Senate and he has consulted with the White House, United Nations, European Union, and World Health Organization.
Jay is an active science communicator with over 100,000 social media followers. He writes the Power of Us newsletter and has written for The New York Times, BBC, The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Wall Street Journal, Guardian, LA Times, TIME, and The Washington Post. He has given talks at dozens of psychology departments and business schools, as well as academic conferences, professional events, and non-academic organizations (including the World Science Festival, Aspen Ideas Festival, The Atlantic Festival, World Bank, and TEDx).
Jay teaches courses on Social Psychology, Social Neuroscience, Attitudes and Evaluation, Intergroup Relations, Group Identity, Moral Psychology, Professional Development, and Introduction to Psychology. He received the NYU Golden Dozen Teaching Award for teaching excellence. He also co-founded a mentoring column for Science Magazine and has created several educational videos (e.g., TED-Ed).
He has received several awards, including the Young Investigator Award for distinguished contributions in social neuroscience from the Society for Social Neuroscience, the Young Scholars Award for outstanding achievements in social and personality psychology from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology, the Janet T. Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from the Association for Psychological Science, the F.J. McGuigan Early Career Investigator Prize from the American Psychological Foundation, the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize, and the SPSP Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize.
Jay’s work has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, American Psychological Foundation, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, John Templeton Foundation, Templeton World Charity Foundation, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, AE Foundation, Google Jigsaw, and Norwegian Research Council.
Michelle “Lani” Shiota is a Professor of Psychology (Social Psychology program) and Director of the Substance use and Addiction Translational Research Network (SATRN) at Arizona State University. Her basic science investigates positive emotions, emotion regulation, emotion in close relationships, and emotional mechanisms of health behavior and behavior change. She also has a growing body of research related to addiction, including development and evaluation of training for community members in opioid overdose reversal as well as intervention to reduce substance use disorder stigma. Her research employs multiple methods including behavior coding, cognitive tasks, peripheral psychophysiology, narrative analysis, and questionnaire development. Shiota’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the John Templeton Foundation.
Her lab’s work is published in high-impact journals including American Psychologist, JPSP, PSPB, Emotion, Evolution and Human Behavior, and Prevention Science. Dr. Shiota is lead author of the textbook Emotion and Motivation (Oxford University Press; co-author Sarah Rose Cavanagh), and co-editor of the Handbook of Positive Emotions (Guilford; co-authors Michele Tugade and Leslie Kirby). She is currently co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Affective Science, in partnership with Ralph Adolphs and Linda Camras. She is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) and Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), and an elected member of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology (SESP). She received her BA in communication from Stanford University, and her doctorate in Social/Personality Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Shiota joined ASU in 2006, establishing the Shiota Psychophysiology Laboratory for Affective Testing (a.k.a. SPLAT Lab).
David Broockman is an associate professor in the Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Broockman is the author of over three dozen peer-reviewed scholarly essays on American politics. Broockman’s research has overturned conventional wisdom regarding the nature, extent, and consequences of political polarization in the American public; how political campaigns and organizations can effectively persuade voters; and how to have productive conversations to bridge divides and reduce prejudice. His research has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times Magazine, and on This American Life.
Broockman received the American Political Science Association’s Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior section’s Emerging Scholar Award for the top scholar who is within 10 years of their PhD, the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Award for Research in the Public Interest, and the Joseph L. Bernd Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Politics in 2018.
His project, “The Nature and Origins of Political Polarization in America,” will tackle the conventional wisdom about polarization head-on, reassessing the extent to which politicians have in fact grown more extreme over time while exploring whether voters are in fact more moderate than politicians.
Learn more about him here.
Paige is the Events and Administrative Assistant at the Mind & Life Institute. With a strong background in the social impact field, Paige began her career as a public school teacher before serving as a project manager for the UVA Latino Health Initiative. She holds an M.A. in Spanish and Multilingual Education from George Mason University and a B.A. in Spanish from Baldwin Wallace University.
Paige is passionate about leveraging data to inform strategic initiatives that support community well-being. She is particularly inspired by the intersection of contemplative practice and social change, and is excited to explore how this integration can foster greater equity and compassion in society during her time at Mind & Life.
Outside of work, Paige enjoys spending time with her two young daughters, sharing in their evolving interests and experiencing the world through their eyes. She lives in Charlottesville with her family and loves all the city has to offer.
David Robert Loy, PhD is a professor, writer, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Zen tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism.
He is a prolific author, whose essays and books have been translated into many languages. His articles appear regularly in the pages of major journals such as Tikkun and Buddhist magazines including Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, and Buddhadharma, as well as in a variety of scholarly journals. He is on the advisory boards of Buddhist Global Relief, the Clear View Project, Zen Peacemakers, and the Ernest Becker Foundation.
David lectures nationally and internationally on various topics, focusing primarily on the encounter between Buddhism and modernity: what each can learn from the other. He is especially concerned about social and ecological issues and is the author of Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis. He is a founding member of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center near Boulder, Colorado.
David received his BA from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota and studied analytic philosophy at King’s College, University of London. His MA is from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and his PhD is from the National University of Singapore.
Tsewang Namgyal is a Director in the Structured Finance Group of Global Corporate and Investment Banking at one of the world’s largest financial institutions. He serves on the Tibet Fund Board and the Garrison Institute Advisory Board, where he founded the Compassionate Leadership in Finance (CLiF) program. He is a founding member of Mindful on Wall Street and the key visionary behind the Reimagining Doeguling Tibetan Settlement Project. Tsewang is a graduate of Tibetan Children’s Village, Dickinson College, and the Thunderbird School of Global Management, where he serves on the Thunderbird Global Alumni Network Advisory Council (TGAN).
Michelle Flores Vryn, CFRE is an engagement strategist and fundraiser who helps nonprofits grow with clarity and integrity. With over 15 years of experience across conservation, higher education, and civic engagement missions, she co-founded two national research efforts—the AI Equity Project and the Social Impact Staff Retention Project—focused on the future of nonprofit work. She also serves as a board member for the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Global.
A frequent writer and speaker, Michelle is passionate about building bridges across sectors and communities to spark more regenerative forms of social change. One of her deepest grounding practices is daily meditation, a discipline she has carried for nearly two decades. Outside of work, you can find her on long walks with her dogs or discussing business strategy with her endlessly patient husband.
Park Krausen is a story sharer with over 30 years of experience as a professional actor, director, producer, and translator. She is committed to supporting cross cultural and cross disciplinary conversations—exploring timely questions at the intersections of science, belief systems, and creativity through art. As Producing Artistic director of Théâtre du Rêve, the only professional Francophone theater company in the U.S., she performed classics, commissioned new works, and created immersive public experiences.
Recently, as a story sharer turned filmmaker, Park is honored to capture the current manifestation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s initiative to foster a dialogue between Buddhism and science in the forthcoming documentary, Frontiers of the Mind: The 100 Year Project. The film highlights a collaboration between young monastics and international academic researchers. Since 2019 she has traveled to Drepung Loeseling Monastery, Dharamshala, Mind & Life’s Summer Research Institute, and Emory and Northwestern Universities, capturing the newest chapter of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative’s Research training program, which inspires groundbreaking research initiated by monastic scientists. Additionally, Park served as the Director of Monastic Research Training at Northwestern and supported Mind & Life’s initiative to expand monastic involvement in the Summer Research Institute.
She is deeply grateful for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings and inspired by found family—the monastic scientists—to live the teachings.
