Dr. Dominique A. Malebranche (she/they) is a licensed psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Psychology working at Pepperdine University on original Chumas/Tongva lands. Counseling psychologist by training, her work emphasizes intersections of embodied healing justice in BIPOC communities and treatment and assessment of psychological, relational, and historical traumatic stress, capacity building, and community and contemplative body-mind interventions. She is an invited Teaching Affiliate of Harvard Medical School at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, former postdoctoral fellow at the internationally known Trauma Center at JRI in Brookline, MA, and previous intern at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Dr. Malebranche centers the awareness of the body as a cultural source of healing, wisdom and transformation, demonstrated through co-organizing and co-founding Just Healing Coalition (JHC), providing embodied DEI and trauma-informed consultation in clinical, organizational, and community settings, and teaching yoga and contemplative practice from a liberatory framework. 

Dr. Malebranche has served coordination and leadership roles in local, national and international organizations and has published articles, including recent publication in the Special Issue of the Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, and book chapters related to trauma informed clinical and contemplative practice. Her service to the Mind & Life Institute has included Varela grant review, participation in the Program Planning Committee for the 2018 International Symposium for Contemplative Research (ISCR), DEI and cultural consultation for internal MLI staff and at the 2019 Summer Research Institute (SRI), and the co-development of the Global Majority Leadership and Mentorship Program. 

Current embodiment practices explore the cultivation of joy, healing, resistance and liberation in relationship to the ocean. 

Chris Kaplan received his M.A. in the social sciences from the University of Chicago, where he researched politically engaged Buddhism and the global justice movement. Since then, he has been involved in the field of contemplative research and education in a number of capacities, including as a visiting researcher at Brown University, a visiting scholar and research associate with the Mind & Life Institute, a mentor for Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, and various other ongoing collaborations. He locates his work at the intersection of embodied contemplative practice, social justice, and collective transformation through nature connection, communal healing, and cultural repair. 

Norman Farb, PhD is an Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, where he directs the Regulatory and Affective Dynamics laboratory (www.radlab.zone). A Fellow at the Mind & Life Institute, he studies the cognitive neuroscience of well-being, focusing on mental habits, such as how we think about ourselves and interpret our emotions. His current research explores online interventions to support well-being, and neuroimaging of interoception, our sense of the body’s internal state. He has been continually supported by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Council (NSERC) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for his entire career. He was the co-recipient of the inaugural Mind and Life Catherine Kerr Award for Courageous and Compassionate Scholarship.

His recent book, Better in Every Sense, describes the surprising role of sensation in mental health.

Larry Yang teaches mindfulness and loving kindness retreats nationally and has a special interest in creating access to the dharma for diverse multicultural communities. Larry has practiced meditation for almost 30 years, with extensive time in Burma and Thailand, and a six-month period of ordination as a Buddhist monastic. Larry is on the Teachers Council of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, is one of the founding teachers of both East Bay Meditation Center (Oakland) and Insight Community of the Desert (Palm Springs). Larry was honored for his work in racial justice by being selected as the community’s choice for Grand Marshal in the 2016 San Francisco LGBTIQ Pride Parade, whose theme that year was “For Racial and Economic Justice.” He has been part of the coordinating team developing future diverse community meditation teachers in Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leadership Programs for 10 years. Larry is one of the core trainers for the current Spirit Rock Dharma Teacher Training Program to develop the participation from multicultural communities as fully empowered dharma teachers. His new book is “Awakening Together: the Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community” (Wisdom Publications).

Peter Wayne, PhD, is a researcher and practitioner in the field of mind-body and integrative medicine.  Dr. Wayne is the Bernard Osher Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and the Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, jointly based at HMS and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is also the Founding Director of the Tree of Life Tai Chi Center in Boston and a Mind & Life Fellow. 

Laura Schmalzl is an associate professor at Southern California University of Health Sciences, where she teaches neuroscience, research methods, and yoga foundations for healthcare professionals. Laura initially trained as a clinical neuropsychologist before completing a Ph.D. in cognitive science and post-doctoral work in cognitive neuroscience as well as behavioral medicine. Alongside her academic work, she is also a dedicated yoga practitioner and longtime yoga instructor. Much of Laura’s research over the past years evolved around the development and scientific evaluation of yoga interventions for both clinical and healthy populations. Broadly speaking, her research interests lie in furthering our understanding of the mechanisms through which yoga-based practices can impact cognitive functioning, body awareness, and emotional self-regulation. Laura is also editor in chief of the “International Journal of Yoga Therapy.”

Alisa Dennis discovered meditation through her study of metaphysics and ancient Christian mystical traditions. She practiced within the S.N. Goenka tradition of Vipassana, then studied mindfulness through the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. She completed a multiyear, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction training related to integrating contemplative practices into psychotherapy. Alisa also completed residential training in the Zen Soto tradition. Alisa values the unifying and integrating power of Insight practice and its capacity to reconnect us to our natural capacity to meet the moments of our lives with kindness, openness, and flexibility. Alisa is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in the Los Angeles area. She offers mindfulness and self-compassion trainings at corporations and community-based organizations. She is in the current Spirit Rock Teacher Training Program and both assists and leads residential retreats and daylong programs. Alisa has explored many other spiritual traditions. Her work with indigenous shamans has supported her development of a multidimensional consciousness and has deepened and broadened the matrices through which she understands the nature of human existence.

Anil Seth is professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex and founding co-director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. His research group investigates the biological basis of consciousness by bringing together research across neuroscience, mathematics, artificial intelligence, computer science, psychology, philosophy, and psychiatry. He is specifically interested in how conscious perceptions of the world and of the self can be understood through the lens of the “predictive brain.” He has published over 150 academic papers and edited the best-selling popular science book 30 Second Brain. Anil is editor-in-chief of the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press), a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow. He was the 2017 president of the British Science Association (Psychology Section), and his 2017 TED talk has been viewed over 6.5 million times.

Anil is featured in the Mind & Life podcast episode How our minds predict our reality.

john a. powell is Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute and Professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously the Executive Director at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University, and prior to that, the founder and director of the Institute for Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. john formerly served as the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He is a co-founder of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the boards of several national and international organizations. john led the development of an “opportunity-based” model that connects affordable housing to education, health, health care, and employment and is well-known for his work developing the frameworks of “targeted universalism” and “othering and belonging” to effect equity-based interventions. john has taught at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia University. His latest book is Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.

john was featured in the Mind & Life podcast episode Othering and belonging.

Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor at Stanford University, in the Stanford Anthropology Department. Her work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the world of the supernatural, and the world of psychosis. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and received a John Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2007. When God Talks Back was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. It was awarded the $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize for Religion. She has published over 30 op-eds in The New York Times, and her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Science News, and many other publications. Her new book, Our Most Troubling Madness: Schizophrenia and Culture, was published by the University of California Press in October 2016.

Tanya was featured in the Mind & Life podcast episode How social worlds shape our minds.