David’s research explores how people adapt and thrive under stress, with a focus on the mind-body connection and pathways to resilience. He conducts community-based intervention trials, laboratory experiments, and neuroimaging studies to uncover how different stress management strategies, such as mindfulness meditation, self-affirmation, and cognitive reappraisal, can enhance coping, reduce stress, and improve health outcomes. Currently, David is leading studies that examine how digital mindfulness training influences brain function, physiological stress responses, and disease outcomes in at-risk populations. His work also investigates how simple behavioral strategies, like engaging in meaningful activities or reflecting on personal values, can enhance performance under pressure. His research bridges psychology, neuroscience, and public health to design evidence-based tools for improving mental and physical well-being.
Dr. Alexandra J. Fiocco is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Ryerson University and is Director of the Stress and Healthy Aging Research Laboratory in Toronto. She obtained a PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University in 2008, followed by four years of postdoctoral training in clinical and epidemiological research at the University of California, San Francisco and at Baycrest in Toronto. Dr. Fiocco has published 26 peer-reviewed articles, 10 of which are first-author papers. Her research program is two-pronged: the first investigating biopsychosocial predictors of cognitive aging and the second investigating prevention strategies that may maintain or augment cognitive function and well-being in late life. The study of mindfulness-based training has become a central focus in Dr. Fiocco’s prevention research stream.
Jordan Kohn received his B.A. in biology from Reed College and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Emory University and the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. His research interests are 1) to elucidate the biological mechanisms by which social adversity affects human health and well being, and 2) to investigate the extent to which positive changes in the social environment, specifically psychosocial interventions like meditation, can mitigate the deleterious effects of adversity. Kohn also explore how early-life maltreatment alters immune development and its health consequences later in life. Concurrent with his graduate work, he teaches Cognitively-Based Compassion Training at Emory and has had the privilege of introducing CBCT to adolescents in foster care, children, undergraduates, physicians, and prisoners.
Robert Kaplan is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, teacher, and musician in dance. His work, Living Musically™, uses improvisation as a model or metaphor to understand the world and live well in it, providing tools and strategies to improve mind-body focus as a foundation for team skills such as communication, conflict, and enabling others. His work within healthcare and the arts offers tools to support the notion that being present, self-aware, and team-aware are critical in all endeavors. He has been a composer, teacher and musician in dance since 1976, having taught and performed at major national and international dance festivals since 1980. His book, Rhythmic Training for Dancers, CD-ROM, An Interactive Guide to Music for Dancers, and Instructor’s Guide, were published internationally by Human Kinetics, Inc. Over seventy of his scores for choreography have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and Mexico. He is a founding member and former president of the International Guild of Musicians in Dance, has been the recipient of numerous Meet-the-Composer grants as well as university grants, and is a full professor, and music director for dance in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre at Arizona State University.
Erin Maresh is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona, working with Dr. Jessica Andrews-Hanna in the Neuroscience of Emotion and Thought Lab. Previously, she received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia, where she worked with Drs. Jim Coan and Bethany Teachman, and completed her clinical internship at the Minneapolis VA. Broadly, she researches the contexts and conditions under which internally-guided, self-focused thought is maladaptive, both for individuals experiencing self-focused thought and for their friends and relationship partners, using EEG and fMRI to identify the neural mechanisms behind these processes. In particular, she is interested in the relationship between social anxiety and activity in the default mode network. She is additionally interested in exploring the opposite end of the self-focus spectrum — situations characterized by an absence of self-focus, such as states of flow, experiences of awe, and meditation.
