Oladosu Adenike Titilope is an eco-feminist and a climate justice activist; an advocate for the restoration of Lake Chad for sustainable development and regional stability. In 2019, she became the recipient awardee of Ambassador of Conscience in Nigeria from Amnesty International. She has showcased her climate action at World Economic Forum events, UN Climate change conference (COP), and others. Same here she was invited for the first UN Youth Climate Summit in New York.
Daniel Grupe, Ph.D., is an Associate Scientist at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research utilizes a community-engaged, mixed methods approach to investigate the benefits of mindfulness and related contemplative practices for promoting resilient responses to stress and trauma, focusing specifically on individuals impacted by the criminal legal system. In partnership with community-based organizations and system-impacted individuals, he is working to develop, implement, and evaluate peer-facilitated and strength-based approaches to support mental health during the transition from prison back into the community. His research also investigates the benefits of mindfulness training for police officer stress and mental health, and the role of contemplative practices for meaningful reform efforts that bring about greater well-being for police officers and the broader community.
Pooja Sahni holds a doctorate in contemplative environmental neuroscience from the National Resource Centre for Value Education in Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), India, and is a practitioner of surat-shabd-yoga (ultratranscendental meditational technique). She currently leads the Mind Lab at IITD as a Principal Research Scientist. Her research interests include curriculum development for positive education, as well as behavioral and neurocognitive exploration of contemplative ecological educational techniques as innovative pedagogical tools for prosocial development among students. She has taken courses in theology, neuroscience and learned to use physiological tools (EEG, GSR, fNIRS, and eye tracker) to support her research interests. As part of her social responsibilities, she has led women’s empowerment initiatives in education and skill training, and currently coordinates after-school programs focused on values and cultural training within her community.
Tawni Tidwell, PhD, TMD, is a biocultural anthropologist and Tibetan medical doctor. Her research facilitates bridges across the Western scientific tradition and Tibetan medical and contemplative traditions along with their attendant epistemologies and ontologies. She is currently a Research Associate at the Center for Healthy Minds of University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is Principal Investigator for the Varela Study on Examining Individual Differences in Contemplative Practice Response (ExamID-Biome) that assesses variation in meditation outcomes as it relates to gut microbiome profiles and Tibetan medical constitutional characteristics. She is also Project Lead for the Field Study of the Physiology of Meditation Practitioners and the Tukdam Meditative State (FMed) guided by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in collaboration with Tibetan Buddhist monastic and Tibetan medical colleagues in India as well as the Russian Academy of Sciences. Her published works focus on modes of embodiment and entrainment through practice, diagnostic/treatment paradigms, Tibetan medical conceptions of cancer and metabolic disorders, and transforming toxins into medicines in Tibetan pharmacology. She maintains a private clinical practice in Madison, Wisconsin.
I’m an MA/PhD student in the Psychological Clinical Science program housed at the University of Toronto Scarborough. I’m interested in understanding the pattern of ruminative thoughts, such as how they emerge and develop over time, and whether mindfulness training affects these patterns. My current MA work involves using machine learning to characterize brain activities during interoceptive and exteroceptive attentional states in order to understand the effects of interoceptive training on people’s brain activities and their ability to pay attention to bodily sensations.
Steven Pratscher received his Ph.D. in social-personality psychology from the University of Missouri where he conducted research on interpersonal and relational effects of mindfulness and meditation. He is now a postdoctoral fellow in an integrative and multidisciplinary pain and aging research training program at the University of Florida. He’s interested in examining the effectiveness and mechanisms of action of various mind-body, complementary, and integrative interventions to improve chronic pain, as well as overall health, energy, and well-being. He’s particularly drawn to breathing and how modulating breathing influences consciousness, stress, health, pain, aging, and the body’s natural ability to heal.
Tenzin Sonam is an Assistant research scientist at Emory’s Center for Contemplative Science Compassion-Based Ethics. His research interest is in cross-cultural exploration of key constructs such as, compassion, self-compassion, resiliency, and common humanity included in the Center’s Social, Emotional, and Ethical Learning program, thus, informing its curriculum development and educator trainings to constructively respond to the diverse linguistic, cultural, sociopolitical, ecological, spiritual landscape, and personal identities of the learners, in order to create an inclusive and sustainable global education of the heart and mind. He received his Ph.D. in Teaching and Teacher Education from University of Arizona in 2017.
Michael T. Warren, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Human Early Learning Partnership at the University of British Columbia. His research examines the roles of mindfulness and virtue development in human flourishing from middle childhood through adolescence. Michael is coauthor of Understanding Virtue: Theory and Measurement (Oxford University Press, 2021).
Dr. Rebecca Acabchuk has a PhD in Physiology and Neurobiology, with expertise in brain injury and concussion. She currently works as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Connecticut, in the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP). Her research focuses on evaluating the mental and physical health benefits of yoga and mindfulness-based programs, using advanced methods of evidence synthesis and randomized controlled trials, as well as evaluating implementation strategies to bring evidence-based mindfulness programs into schools and the community. Rebecca’s research interests are inspired by her experience teaching meditation and yoga for 15+ years.
Gio Iacono, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut, School of Social Work. His areas of practice and research specialization are LGBTQ+ youth mental health, mindfulness-based treatment approaches, and promoting diversity/inclusion within education. Dr. Iacono primarily focuses on intervention and community-based research. He has worked as a psychotherapist, educator, community organizer, and researcher in a variety of health and community-based settings. His community development work focuses on promoting the mental health of diverse communities. Gio has also been a mindfulness meditation practitioner for many years, and integrates mindfulness in his work as an educator, researcher and clinician.
