Dr. Alea Skwara is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Dr. Cliff Saron’s research group at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain. She completed her PhD in Psychology, specializing in Cognitive Neuroscience, with Dr. Saron in 2021. Her research explores the neurocognitive bases of compassion and responses to suffering to better understand how we can …
MLI Affiliation Archives:
LaShawnDa Pittman
Dr. Pittman is an Associate Professor in the American Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Washington (UW). She received her Ph.D. in Sociology at Northwestern University. Before coming to the UW, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Poverty Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral …
Mays Imad
Mays views education as an opportunity to empower, heal, and transform individuals and communities. She approaches the classroom as a learning sanctuary where students can feel supported, challenged, grounded, and connected so they can continue to learn, about their inner and the outside world, despite challenges they may face. She received her undergraduate training from …
Anu Gupta
Anu Gupta is a human rights lawyer, social scientist, educator, and the Founder of BE MORE with Anu. He is also a gay immigrant man of color with lived experiences of bias and bullying that almost led him to take his life. But he didn’t. Instead, he dedicated himself to find solutions to bias through …
Cortland Dahl
Dr. Cortland Dahl is a scientist, translator, and non-profit leader with a lifelong interest in meditation and the science of human flourishing. His journey began in the early 1990s when he first learned to meditate. His passion for training the mind led him on a journey around the world, from monasteries in Tibet to zendos …
Rui Afonso
he/him – Rui Afonso is a Brazilian researcher interested in the effects of contemplative practices and altered states of consciousness (self-induced and substance-induced) on mental health. His background is in psychobiology and neuroscience. For decades he has been a teacher and practitioner of Yoga and meditation.
James Kirby
James N. Kirby, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer, Clinical Psychologist, and the Co-Director of the Compassionate Mind Research Group at the University of Queensland. He has broad research interests in compassion, but specifically examines factors that facilitate and inhibit compassionate responding. He also examines the clinical effectiveness of compassion focused interventions, specifically in how they …
Quinn Conklin
Quinn Conklin (she/her) is a Post-doctoral Scholar at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain where she leads the Contemplative Coping During Covid-19 project. Quinn has been a member of the Saron lab since 2013, where completed her dissertation investigating the effects of a month-long, silent, residential, Insight Meditation retreat on biomarkers of stress, …
Robin Nusslock
I am an Associate Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University where I direct the Affective & Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory. My research program uses the tools of human neuroscience to study how the brain creates emotion and how these brain systems are implicated in health and well-being. I also study how stress affects the emotional brain, …
Matthew Sacchet
Dr. Matthew D. Sacchet, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Sacchet is an established expert in meditation and mental health research. His background includes leading teams to conduct innovative and complex studies, employing advanced research methods, studying meditation and mental …
