Chikako Ozawa-de Silva, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Cultural, Medical and Psychological Anthropology at Emory University. She received her D. Phil. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Oxford University in 2001. Following that, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard’s Department of Social Medicine, and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago. She is a recipient of an NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Fellowship and a Mind and Life Contemplative Studies Fellowship. Her research focuses on cross-cultural understandings of health and illness, especially mental well-being, and her work brings Western and Asian (particularly Japanese and Tibetan) perspectives on the mind-body, contemplative practices, religion, and therapy into dialogue. Her recent research has examined the Japanese contemplative practice of Naikan, secularized contemplative practices in the US, Tibetan medicine, loneliness and suicide. Her publications include one monograph, Psychotherapy and Religion in Japan: The Japanese Introspection Practice of Naikan (Routledge, 2006), and several published journal articles and book chapters both in English and Japanese.
Fadel Zeidan (2023 SRI PPC Co-Chair) is an associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology. He currently holds leadership positions in the UCSD Center for Integrative Health, UCSD Psychedelic Research Health Initiative, and is on the Mind & Life Steering Council, and is an MLI Fellow. Fadel’s current research is focused on determining the psychological, physiological and neural mechanisms that mediate the relationship between self-regulatory practices and health. Specifically, Fadel’s work examines the mechanisms of action supporting mindfulness meditation on pain. To date, he and his team have demonstrated that mindfulness meditation is mechanistically distinct from and more effective than placebo, distraction, and relaxation.
Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., is distinguished professor of contemplative and religious studies at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, where she is a founding faculty member. She is head of the Compassion Training Task Force for the Center for the Advancement of Contemplative Education at Naropa, and serves as one of the compassion trainers. As Buddhist practitioner since the early 1970s, Simmer-Brown became a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1974, and was empowered as an acharya (senior teacher) by his dharma heir, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, in 2000.
Her academic teaching specialties are contemplative studies, Indian Buddhist philosophy, tantric Buddhism, and interreligious dialogue. She co-chairs the Contemplative Studies Steering Committee for the American Academy of Religion, and serves on the board of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Her book, Dakini’s Warm Breath (Shambhala 2001), explores the feminine principle as it reveals itself in meditation practice and everyday life for women and men. She also co-edited Meditation and the Classroom: Contemplative Pedagogy for Religious Studies (SUNY 2011), that inventively demonstrates how contemplative practices can be introduced into the university classroom, and what the benefits are for learning.
Sona Dimidjian, PhD is Director of the Renée Crown Wellness Institute and Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her current research projects focus on preventing depression and supporting wellness among new and expectant mothers, promoting healthy body image and leadership among young women, and enhancing mindfulness and compassion among youth, families, and educators. She also has a longstanding interest in expanding access, scaling, and sustaining effective programs, using both digital technology and community-based partnerships. Dr. Dimidjian received her BA in psychology from the University of Chicago and her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Washington.
Modern day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader, Cynthia Bourgeault divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine, and a demanding schedule traveling globally to teach and spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative and wisdom path.
Currently a core faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation, she has been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of centering prayer and has worked closely with fellow teachers and colleagues including Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, and Richard Rohr. Bourgeault has actively participated in numerous inter-spiritual dialogues and events with luminaries and leaders such as A.H. Almaas, Kabir Helminski, Swami Atmarupananda, and Rami Shapiro.
She is a member of the Global Peace Initiative for Women Contemplative Council and recipient of the 2014 Contemplative Voices award from Shalem Institute. She is a founding director of both The Contemplative Society and the Aspen Wisdom School. She continues to contribute to The Contemplative Society in her role as principal teacher and advisor.
Cynthia is the author of eight books: The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, The Wisdom Jesus, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, Mystical Hope, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, Chanting the Psalms, and Love is Stronger than Death. She has also authored or contributed to numerous articles on the Christian wisdom path in publications such as Parabola Magazine, Gnosis Magazine, and Sewanee Theological Review.
Gregory Cajete is a Native American educator whose work is dedicated to honoring the foundations of indigenous knowledge in education. He is a Tewa Indian from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. He has served as a New Mexico Humanities scholar in ethno-botany of Northern New Mexico and as a member of the New Mexico Arts Commission. In addition, he has lectured at colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Italy, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, England, France, and Germany.
Cajete is director of Native American Studies and a Professor in the Division of Language, Literacy and Socio cultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. He has authored seven books, including Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education; Ignite the Sparkle: An Indigenous Science Education Curriculum Model; Spirit of the Game: Indigenous Wellsprings; A People’s Ecology: Explorations in Sustainable Living; Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence; Critical Neurophilosophy and Indigenous Wisdom; and Indigenous Community: Teachings of the Seventh Fire. He also has chapters in 22 other books along with numerous articles and more than 250 national and international presentations.
Erin McCarthy (she/her) is a professor, speaker, author, mindfulness coach, philosophical counselor, and parent of twins. After completing her undergraduate degree in French and Philosophy at Trent University, she went on to complete a Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa, comparing western and eastern views of the self. A professor of philosophy at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY from 2000-2022, where she is now Professor Emerita, Erin currently divides her time between teaching philosophy part time, conference engagements and mindfulness teaching and coaching. Her teaching, writing and coaching bring together eastern and western philosophies and practices to cultivate human flourishing, joy, ease and mental health. She is a founding executive member of the new International Society for Contemplative Research and currently serving as its Director of Humanities. Erin is a Mind & Life Fellow, served on the 2016 ISCR Program Planning Committee and was co-chair of the ISCR 2018 Program Planning Committee.
Ed Sarath, Ph.D., is professor of music and also director of the University of Michigan program in creativity and consciousness studies. He divides his time between teaching, scholarship, performing, composing, recording, speaking, and spearheading leadership initiatives. He founded and serves as president of the International Society for Improvised Music (isimprov.org). His most recent book, Black Music Matters (Rowman and Littlefield 2018), applies principles of a consciousness-based worldview called Integral Theory to music, following in the footsteps of his prior book, Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness: Jazz as Integral Template for Music, Education, and Society (SUNY/Albany, 2013). An earlier book, Music Theory Through Improvisation: A New Approach to Musicianship Training (Routledge, 2010), is based in his design of an innovative approach to core curriculum musicianship training that he has taught for twenty years.
Sarath is co-editor of several volumes on contemplative education, including a two-volume series on SUNY/Albany dealing with theoretical and case studies related to intersubjective contemplative education. His writings also appear in a wide range of journals and collected volumes across fields. His compositional work spans diverse musical horizons and ensemble types. His large ensemble jazz compositions are featured on his recording New Beginnings, played by the London Jazz Orchestra playing his large ensemble compositions and his solo flugelhorn work. His music has been performed across the United States, Europe, and South America. Prior recordings include Timescape, Last Day in May (Konnex, Berlin) and Voice of the Wind (Owl, Paris) and feature a host of internationally renowned artists as side personnel.
Harold D. Roth is Professor of Religious Studies and the Director of the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown University.
Roth is a specialist in Classical Chinese Religious Thought, Classical Daoism, the comparative study of contemplative practices and experiences and a pioneer of the academic field of Contemplative Studies. Roth is the founder and director of Brown’s unique “Contemplative Studies Initiative” and was the co-founder and co-director of the Warren Alpert Medical School’s Scholarly Concentration in Contemplative Studies; he is the person who coined the term “Contemplative Studies”.
Roth’s publications include six books and more than 50 articles and book chapters on the history and religious thought of the Daoist tradition, on the textual history and textual criticism of classical Chinese works, and on the pedagogy and the academic discipline of Contemplative Studies.
Roth has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation For International Scholarly Exchange. He also was awarded a Wriston Fellowship for Teaching Excellence from Brown University. He has been a member of the initial Steering Committees for two groups within the American Academy of Religion, the Daoist Studies Section and the Contemplative Studies Group. He has served on the program planning committees for several Mind & Life Institute events.
As an innovator in the field of Contemplative Studies, Roth has developed courses that combine traditional third-person study with critical first-person approaches. He is currently working on a book manuscript detailing the theory and practice of “Integrative Contemplative Pedagogy.”
Amishi Jha is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami, and Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, prior to which she was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD from the University of California–Davis, and received her postdoctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University in functional neuroimaging. She studies the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion, and resilience. With grants from the Department of Defense and several private foundations, she has been systematically investigating the applications of mindfulness training in education, corporate, elite sports, first responder, and military contexts. In addition to her own published body of research, her work has been featured in many outlets including TED.com, NPR, and Mindful Magazine. In addition, she has been invited to present her work to NATO, the UK Parliament, the Pentagon, and the World Economic Forum. In her national bestseller, Peak Mind (Harper Collins), she shares her discoveries on how attention can be trained for optimal performance and well-being. Visit amishi.com to learn more about Amishi’s work.
Amishi was featured in the Mind & Life podcast episode Attention, mind wandering, and stress.
