Dr. Britton earned a B.A. in Neuroscience from Colgate University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arizona in 2007. She is the recipient of two National Research Service Awards (NRSA) and a Career Development Award (CDA) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is currently the Director of Brown’s Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory which investigates the psychophysiological (EEG, EMG, EKG) and neurocognitive effects of cognitive training and mindfulness-based interventions for mood and anxiety disorders. Research questions investigate which cognitive training practices are best or worst suited for which types of conditions and why, moderators of treatment outcome, practice-specific effects, and adverse effects. She is currently PI of 2 NIH-funded studies “Dismantling Mindfulness” which compares the effects of three different types of meditation training programs on pre-frontal cortex functioning in depression; and a collaborative infrastructure grant (UH2) entitled “Mindfulness Influences on Self-Regulation”. An interdisciplinary qualitative study entitled “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience,” is investigating under-reported and potentially challenging, distressing or impairing meditation-related effects. Dr. Britton offers meditation safety and trauma-informed mindfulness “First Do No Harm” trainings to mindfulness organizations, clinicians and educators and provides support services to individuals who are experiencing meditation-related difficulties.
As a clinician, she has been trained as an instructor in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and has taught mindfulness to both clinical and non-clinical populations, and in federally-funded clinical trials.
Dr. David Vago is Research Associate Professor and Director of the Contemplative Neuroscience and Mind-Body (CNMB) Research Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Vanderbilt University. He is core training faculty for the Vanderbilt Brain Institute and Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology, and Inflammation. He is also a research associate in the Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He has completed post-doctoral fellowships in Biological and Social Psychiatry, Neuropsychiatric Neuroimaging, and Mind and Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Weill Cornell Medical School, and University of Utah School of Medicine. He has previously held the position of Research Director at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Vanderbilt and Senior Research Coordinator for the Mind & Life Institute. He is a Mind & Life Fellow.
Graça Machel is President of the Foundation for Community Development, the UN Secretary General’s Sustainable Development Goals Advocate. She is a renowned international advocate for women’s and children’s rights and has been a social and political activist over many decades. She is a former freedom fighter and was the first Education Minister of Mozambique. Her contributions to the Africa Progress Panel, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Group, the High-Level Panel on Post 2015 Development Agenda, and now as Member of the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Development Goals Advocacy Group have been widely appreciated. She is a member of The Elders, Girls Not Brides, Board Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Ambassador for Every Woman Every Child, President of SOAS, University of London, Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Board Chair of the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, President of the Foundation for Community Development, founder of the Zizile Institute for Child Development. As Founder of the Graça Machel Trust, she has focused more recently on advocating for women’s economic and financial empowerment, education for all, an end to child marriage, food security and nutrition, and promoting democracy and good governance.
Carsten de Dreu is Professor of Psychology at Leiden University and is affiliated with the Center for Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making at the University of Amsterdam. He is a fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, and former president of the European Association of Social Psychology. He trained over 30 PhD students and 10 postdoctoral fellows, many of whom pursued successful academic careers. With them, and others, he published over 200 research articles and 50 book chapters on the neurobiological and psychological underpinnings of human cooperation and conflict, ethnocentrism, intergroup prejudice and discrimination, and creative problem solving as a means to negotiate agreement. He has published several books, including “Conflict in Organizations” (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2008; with Michele Gelfand), and “Social Conflict within and Between Groups” (Taylor & Francis, 2014).
His Honour, Dr. Ponatshego H.K. Kedikilwe, was appointed Vice President of the Republic of Botswana on 1 August 2012. He is a graduate of Syracuse University in New York. He has served as a senior civil servant in the ministries of Finance and Development Planning, Works and Communications and headed the Department of Public Service Management. In addition, he has served as Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Commerce and Industry, Finance and Development Planning, Education and Minerals, Energy and Water Resources. He has served as Chairman of the University of Botswana Council and was Member of the Monetary Preparatory Commission which recommended the establishment of the Bank of Botswana and use of the Pula currency in 1976. He has served in various key parastatal and private organisations in Botswana and chaired the famous Presidential Commission on Education in 1992. That same year, he was awarded a Presidential Order of Honour. He received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Botswana in 2007. In November 2011 His Majesty the Emperor Akihito of Japan conferred on Dr. Kedikilwe the highest award in that country, the distinction of the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun for efforts in sustaining and developing the bilateral relations between Japan and the Republic of Botswana. In 2014 Dr. Kedikilwe was awarded Naledi ya Botswana (NYB), an honour given for outstanding service to the Republic of Botswana. He was a Member of Parliament for 30 years (1984 – 2014). After his retirement the President of Botswana appointed him Chairman of the Presidential Inspectorate Task Team to assess, monitor and propose interventions to improve the delivery of Government programmes and projects such as Poverty Eradication, Youth Development Fund, Women Economic Empowerment and Economic Diversification Drive.
Uri Hasson grew up in Jerusalem. As an undergraduate, he studied philosophy and cognitive sciences at the Hebrew University. He completed his PhD in Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and was a postdoctoral fellow at NYU before moving to Princeton. He is currently a Professor in the Psychology Department and the Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. His research program aims to understand the neural basis of face-to-face, brain-to-brain, social interaction, with a focus on verbal communication and storytelling in real-life contexts.
