Grace Amponsah is a MasterCard foundation scholar and recent graduate of Ashesi University College with a major in Business Administration. She is passionate about youth development, women empowerment and entrepreneurship. She is a member of the Dalai Lama fellows and Byron fellows community whose purpose is to create a flourishing world by building compassionate, resilient and visionary leaders around the world. She is the founder of “A New Dawn,” an organization whose sole purpose is to unleash the potential of underprivileged teenage girls by maximizing their educational, financial, social and spiritual life. Amponsah is presently a faculty intern for Foundations of Design and Entrepreneurship at Ashesi University College.
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is Professor and Research Chair for Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University. Her work focuses mainly on two strands of research: exploring intergenerational repercussions of oppression and institutional violence, and exploring what she terms “reparative humanism” which builds on her earlier work on the relationship between remorse and forgiveness after historical trauma. She loves coastal walks and is a patron of the theatre as well as of opera and listens to jazz at home.
Anthony King, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at University of Michigan Medical School, and faculty associate of Institute for Social Research (ISR) and Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety Research Group, is a clinical psychologist and translational neuroscience researcher, whose research focuses on neuroimaging (fMRI), genomic, and epigenetic effects of trauma exposure, and psychotherapeutic interventions for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), including Contemplative practices. He is lead author of a clinical trial of MBCT for PTSD, and co-PI of a 5-year federally-funded research program to develop a Mindfulness- and Compassion-based therapy for PTSD in military veterans (Iraq & Afghanistan), and test its clinical and neurobiological effects using fMRI brain imaging.
Alfred Kaszniak, PhD received his doctorate in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and completed an internship and postdoctoral training in clinical neuropsychology at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. He is currently Director of the Neuropsychology, Emotion, and Meditation Laboratory, Faculty and Advisory Board member of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute, Faculty Advisory Board Member of the Center for Compassion Studies, and a professor in the departments of Psychology, Neurology, and Psychiatry at The University of Arizona (UA). He is the co-author or editor of seven books, and over 160 journal articles and chapters, on topics including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, healthy aging, consciousness, memory self-monitoring, emotion, the psychophysiology of long-term and short-term meditation, and contemplative pedagogy. He has also received dharma transmission in Zen Buddhism, and serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Upaya Zen Center.
