Clifford Saron is a research scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain and MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1999. In the early 1990s, he coordinated field research investigating Tibetan Buddhist mind training under the auspices of the private office of H. H. the Dalai Lama and the Mind & Life Institute. He has served on the Mind & Life Program and Research Council and been faculty at Mind & Life Summer Research Institutes in both Garrison, New York, and Chiemsee, Germany. Saron is principal investigator of the Shamatha Project, a mixed-methods multidisciplinary longitudinal investigation of the effects of long-term intensive meditation on physiological and psychological processes central to well- being, attention, emotion regulation, and health. It was conceived with and taught by Alan Wallace in collaboration with a large consortium of researchers at University of California, Davis and elsewhere. In 2012, Saron and his team were awarded the inaugural Templeton Prize Research Grant in honor of H. H. the Dalai Lama to continue this work. Recently, his group has also examined effects of one-month insight meditation retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Saron’s other research area focuses on uni- and multisensory processing in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to better understand individual differences in how these children experience their daily sensory environments. Saron is also part of a study at University of California, San Francisco of mindfulness-based interventions for mothers of children with ASD.

At the 2018 International Symposium for Contemplative Research, Mind & Life presented Saron with its inaugural Service Award.

Cliff Saron served on the Mind & Life Steering Council from Spring 2016 to Spring 2019.

Read our tribute to Dr. Saron and his nearly three decades of service to Mind & Life on our blog »

Andrew Dreitcer is Professor of Spirituality, Director of Spiritual Formation, Director of the D.Min in “Spiritual Renewal, Contemplative Practice, and Strategic Leadership,” and co-directs the Center for Engaged Compassion at Claremont School of Theology. He founded a seminary program in spiritual direction, and served 15 years as a Presbyterian pastor. Current work includes comparative explorations of spiritual practices across religious traditions – and how these practices form lives of engaged compassion. Andrew has co-led workshops on compassion, healing, reconciliation, and restorative justice in Zimbabwe, the US, and the UK. He studied at Wabash College, Oxford, Yale, and the Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley. A year at the ecumenical Christian monastery of Taizé and participation in an intentionally Afro-centric activist congregation have significantly shaped his own spiritual life. His book, Living Compassion-Loving Like Jesus, was named one of the “Best Books of 2017” by the website, “Spirituality and Practice.” Andy and his wife have two daughters.

Sarah Bowen is an assistant professor of psychology at Pacific University in Portland, OR. Her research and clinical work has focused primarily on integrating meditation practice and mindfulness-based approaches traditional with Western cognitive behavioral approaches for addictive behaviors. The primary focus of her personal, clinical, and research practices has been exploration of processes underlying behavior change, and adaptation of treatments and practices to reach a wide and diverse patient and client population. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters in this area, Dr. Bowen is lead author of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Addictive Behaviors: A Clinician’s Guide. She has been practicing in the Theravada tradition for about 15 years, and has facilitated mindfulness-based relapse prevention groups in private practice, veterans’ medical centers, county treatment agencies, and prisons. She offers professional trainings to researchers and clinicians in the U.S. and internationally. She has a particular interested in adapting and disseminating mindfulness-based treatment for dual-diagnosis and underserved populations. 

Sarah Bowen served on the Mind & Life Steering Council from 2017 to 2020.

Robert W. Roeser is the Bennett Pierce Professor of Caring and Compassion in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, College of Health and Human Development, at Penn State University. His PhD is from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan (1996), and he also has master’s degrees in religion and psychology, developmental psychology, and clinical social work. Rob has been a William T. Grant Foundation Scholar (1999-2004), a United States Fulbright Scholar in India (2005, 2017), and the Senior Program Coordinator for the Mind and Life Institute (2007-2010).

His main research interests focus on child and adolescent development; school as a primary sociocultural context of holistic human development; and student motivation, learning and broader well-being and self/identity development. More recent work has focused on the role of contemplative practices that cultivate qualities like mindfulness and compassion in education in relation to educators’ and students’ social-emotional wellbeing, health, ethical development, and teaching and learning.

His laboratory is devoted to the creation of new forms of mindfulness and compassion training in education, as well as to the evaluation of such programs with regard to individual outcomes and the promotion of more equitable and compassionate communities of learning in schools (see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2P-usd4AAAAJ&hl=en).

Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is a Professor, and Vice Chair, in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, at University of California, San Francisco. She studies psychological, social, and behavioral pathways underlying chronic psychological stress and stress resilience that impact cellular aging and metabolic health, as well as how contemplative and biobehavioral interventions can promote stress and social resilience.  She co-leads the UCSF Climate and Mental Health Task Force, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine Presidential subgroup focusing on Climate and Health Inequities. She is President of Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, member of National Academy of Medicine.

Elissa helps lead the UCSF Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center, the NIH Stress Measurement Network and the new NIH Emotional Well Being network. Elissa serves as the co-chair of the Mind & Life Steering Council and is a Mind & Life Fellow. She currently serves as co-chair of the 2021 Summer Research Institute (“The Mind, the Human-Earth Connection, and the Climate Crisis”) and previously served as the co-chair of the 2019 Summer Research Institute (“Exploring Mental Habits: Contemplative Practices and Interventions for Individual and Social Flourishing”) and the 2017 Summer Research Institute (“Intersubjectivity and Social Connectivity”). She is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Telomere Effect.

Elissa Epel served on the Mind & Life Steering Council from Spring 2016 to Spring 2022.

Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the executive director of the Mindsight Institute, which focuses on developing mindsight to teach insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families, and communities. Dr. Siegel has published extensively for both the professional and lay audiences. His four “New York Times” best sellers are: “Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human,” “Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain,” and, with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., “The Whole-Brain Child” and “No-Drama Discipline.” His other books include: “The Developing Mind” (2nd ed.), “Mindsight,” “The Mindful Brain,” “The Mindful Therapist,” “The Yes Brain” (also with Tina Payne Bryson), and his latest book, “Aware” (2018). Dr. Siegel also is the founding editor for the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, which contains over 60 textbooks.

Juan is an early-career researcher from Colombia who works in neuroscience and contemplative research. His training has involved studying the neurophysiological dynamics underlying meditation training and sensory perception in humans, and the structure and dynamics of sensory systems in mice. Through this, he has been involved in the development of strategies for neurophenomenological research as well as genetic techniques for mapping and manipulating neural circuits in mice. Outside of his research, Juan co-founded The Black Lotus Collective, an organization aimed at grounding the work of challenging systems of oppression in contemplative practice, as well as creating contemplative communities where people with marginalized identities feel safe, seen, and celebrated. Bringing these different threads of work together, he is currently working in Medellín, Colombia, to develop, implement, and test a meditation-based program to help FARC-EP ex-combatants with the psychological experience of reintegration as part of Colombia’s ongoing peacebuilding process. He is excited to be starting a PhD at MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences where he hopes to connect and extend his work on human strategies for healing and resistance by studying how these strategies are grounded in our biology and our bodies’ embeddedness in the world.

Listen to Juan on the Mind & Life Podcast

Kirat is a student at Columbia University studying how psychology and contemplative practices can be used as instruments for individual and societal transformation. She is completing research at The Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia to identify and deconstruct the multilayered conditioning that prohibits human flourishing. Kirat aims to integrate Tibetan Buddhist philosophy into a traditional psychotherapeutic framework to support others on their path toward self-actualization.

Dr. Dominique A. Malebranche (she/they) is a licensed psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Psychology working at Pepperdine University on original Chumas/Tongva lands. Counseling psychologist by training, her work emphasizes intersections of embodied healing justice in BIPOC communities and treatment and assessment of psychological, relational, and historical traumatic stress, capacity building, and community and contemplative body-mind interventions. She is an invited Teaching Affiliate of Harvard Medical School at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, former postdoctoral fellow at the internationally known Trauma Center at JRI in Brookline, MA, and previous intern at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Dr. Malebranche centers the awareness of the body as a cultural source of healing, wisdom and transformation, demonstrated through co-organizing and co-founding Just Healing Coalition (JHC), providing embodied DEI and trauma-informed consultation in clinical, organizational, and community settings, and teaching yoga and contemplative practice from a liberatory framework. 

Dr. Malebranche has served coordination and leadership roles in local, national and international organizations and has published articles, including recent publication in the Special Issue of the Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, and book chapters related to trauma informed clinical and contemplative practice. Her service to the Mind & Life Institute has included Varela grant review, participation in the Program Planning Committee for the 2018 International Symposium for Contemplative Research (ISCR), DEI and cultural consultation for internal MLI staff and at the 2019 Summer Research Institute (SRI), and the co-development of the Global Majority Leadership and Mentorship Program. 

Current embodiment practices explore the cultivation of joy, healing, resistance and liberation in relationship to the ocean. 

Chris Kaplan received his M.A. in the social sciences from the University of Chicago, where he researched politically engaged Buddhism and the global justice movement. Since then, he has been involved in the field of contemplative research and education in a number of capacities, including as a visiting researcher at Brown University, a visiting scholar and research associate with the Mind & Life Institute, a mentor for Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, and various other ongoing collaborations. He locates his work at the intersection of embodied contemplative practice, social justice, and collective transformation through nature connection, communal healing, and cultural repair.