Lionel is a PhD student in the Cognitive Modeling research group at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and received my master’s degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the University of Amsterdam. His research contributes to the recent shift in social neuroscience away from investigating
single, isolated brains, and instead exploring brain, behavior, and society as an integrated system. He focuses on studying the role of top-down cognitive mechanisms on our ability to take perspectives with others in a way that allows us to develop a shared understanding of goals, beliefs, and social actions.
Shin-Young Kim is a 2nd year clinical psychology Ph.D. student at the University of Rochester under the mentorship of Dr. Ron Rogge. She is interested in the mechanisms underlying mind-body interactions, particularly regarding contemplative meditations and interoceptive disturbances in emotional disorders. After receiving her master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Sogang University, she received a Fulbright to continue her studies in the United States. Based on her past experience working as a researcher in the psychiatric departments of Korean hospitals, she plans to explore the role of cultural factors to address mental health disparities in Asian countries.
I am a Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University where I direct the Affective & Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory. My research program uses the tools of human neuroscience to study how the brain creates emotion and how these brain systems are implicated in health and well-being. I also study how stress affects the emotional brain, and bidirectional signaling between the brain and the immune system in generating risk and resilience for mental and physical health problems. More recently, I have begun examining the effect of intervention programs – including meditation – on neuroimmune signaling, and the potential of these programs to protect the developing brain from stress and adversity. I am very interested in the confluence between science and Buddhism, and am currently serving as Co-Director of Research Training for the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI). This initiative aims to foster collaborations between academic scientists and Tibetan Buddhist monastics and to train monastic scientists in methods for studying the human brain, including EEG and both functional and structural brain imaging.
Dr. Sara Konrath directs the Interdisciplinary Program for Empathy and Altruism Research (iPEAR). Her research tracks changes over time in empathy and related traits in American young adults, and examines potential implications of digital technology for empathy. She has developed digital empathy-building tools for youth (Text to Connect; Random App of Kindness), and has created other empathy-training programs for other groups (e.g., teachers, physicians, museums, nonprofits). Konrath has published dozens of papers in top scientific journals, writes a popular Psychology Today blog, and her research has been featured in national and international media. She is an Associate Professor at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
Dr. Emily Weinstein is a longtime senior researcher (and soon-to-be Project Director) at Project Zero and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. At Project Zero, she leads a suite of projects keyed to studying young people’s digital lives and re-imagining digital well-being. Dr. Weinstein has spent over a decade chasing answers to questions about what it’s like to grow up with smartphones and social media. She also has a longtime commitment to directly supporting schools and families, including through her work with Common Sense on digital citizenship.
Polina is a PhD Candidate in Social Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, working with Dr. Kirk Warren Brown at the Wellbeing Lab. Originally from Russia, she served as Research Assistant at the Positive Psychology of Personality and Motivation Lab (Moscow, Russia), VIA institute on Character (Cincinnati, Ohio), and Decision Neuroscience Lab (Richmond, Virginia). Polina’s research interests lie in the intersection of contemplative science and positive psychology, with a special focus on how mindfulness practice affects our social and emotional well-being. In her free time, Polina enjoys reading and taking walks around Richmond.
Erika Díaz-Almeyda is an Assistant Professor of Biology at California State University, San Marcos, where she leads her microbial ecology lab investigating relationships between microbes and their hosts, with a focus on restoration and agricultural applications. Her pedagogy actively integrates innovative teaching strategies and emphasizes working with undergraduate students as research collaborators. Her current research explores how agroecological systems impact soil microbial diversity and function. She emphasizes traditional ecological practices, integrating local stakeholder perspectives and collaborating with local communities to determine research priorities and support decision-making. She completed her Ph.D. in Biology at The Pennsylvania State University and was an NIH-FIRST fellow at Emory University. She is currently a Sci Comm Identities Project fellow (Metcalf Institute), where she focuses on the intersection of climate change and food-related issues, including food insecurity, and agriculture. She is also a Faculty Innovation Fellow at CSUSM (2024–2025), where she is developing the Milpa HUB—a research garden where she grows milpa and conducts experiments, sharing methods and celebrations related to milpa cultivation. The goal is to expand community access to this ancestral technology while connecting individuals already engaged in milpa-related work, including seed farmers and chefs.
Dr. Jyoti Mishra is an Associate Professor in the department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego. She is the founder and director of the NEATLabs and the Co-director of the University of California’s Climate Resilience Initiative. She also serves as a member of The Mind Body Ecology Institute Circle of Advisors. Jyoti has expertise in community-partnered studies of climate trauma and resilience as well as scalable digital mental health interventions and AI/ML enabled precision psychiatry. Her research has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Hope for Depression Foundation, Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, and the Mind & Life Institute among others. Her climate-related research is widely acknowledged in the media including features in the BBC, CNN, TIME magazine, NPR, Washington Post, World Economic forum, and Scientific American, and is also cited by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Jyoti believes that tough challenges for humanity such as climate change provide the opportunity for inter-generational activism towards a common positive vision for the future in harmony with nature, which can in turn stimulate inter-generational resilience.
Dennis Muñoz Vergara, DVM, MS, MPH is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a mind-body movement therapies (MBMT) researcher. He is also a yoga instructor, a practice he has cultivated since he was pursuing a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree specializing in Animal Pathology in southern Chile. In 2016, he pursued a postdoctoral opportunity at Harvard Medical School (HMS), within the Osher Center’s Connective Tissue Laboratory. His research focuses on the effect of body stretching in acute and chronic myofascial inflammation. In 2017, he successfully applied to the NCCIH-funded T32 program (HMS Research Fellowship in Integrative Medicine). During this fellowship, he completed a program in Clinical Effectiveness and obtained an MPH degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His current research involves a translational pilot RCT examining the systemic inflammatory impact of a single bout of yogic exercise among yoga-naïve and sedentary adults. His long-term goal is to develop a clinical model for studying the intersection between the immune and myofascial systems and the benefits of yoga for health and disease. He loves to cook and dance with his husband, family, and friends. He also cultivates his writings of poetry and short stories with a group of Chilean writers and associates.
