David E. Meyer is a faculty member of the Cognition and Perception Program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A mathematical psychologist and cognitive scientist, he received his PhD from Michigan and subsequently worked for almost a decade as a Member of Technical Staff in the Human Information Processing Research Department at the Bell Telephone Laboratories before returning to academe.

His teaching and research — sponsored by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, and Office of Naval Research — have dealt with fundamental aspects of human perception, attention, learning, memory, language, movement production, multitasking, executive mental control, human-computer interaction, personality and cognitive style, cognitive aging, cognitive neuroscience, mathematical models, and unified computational theories.

For his diverse scientific contributions, Professor Meyer has been elected as a Fellow in the Society of Experimental Psychologists, American Psychological Society, American Psychological Association, and American Association for The Advancement of Science. The American Psychological Association has honored him with its Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.

Nicholas Van Dam holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology and has extensive training in Cognitive Neuroscience and Mindfulness/Meditation. He completed a B.S. in Neurobiology and Psychology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, a 90 minute drive from his hometown of Brookfield, WI. Nicholas completed a M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University at Albany, SUNY and did a Pre-doctoral fellowship in Clinical Psychology at Yale University. He did several post-doctoral fellowships (at New York University School of Medicine; Nathan Kline Institute / Child Mind Institute; Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai) prior to joining the faculty in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne.  

Nicholas has interests in Anxiety, Depression, Decision-making, fMRI, Psychometrics, Mindfulness, and Assessment. Nicholas is a Mind & Life Fellow.

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.