Dr. Vandana Shiva is trained as a Physicist and did her Ph.D. on the subject “Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory” from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She later shifted to interdisciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy, which she carried out at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore. In 1982, she founded an independent institute, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in Dehra Dun dedicated to high quality and independent research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times, in close partnership with local communities and social movements. In 1991, she founded Navdanya, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seed, the promotion of organic farming and fair trade. In 2004 she started Bija Vidyapeeth, an international college for sustainable living in Doon Valley in collaboration with Schumacher College, U.K.
Dr. Shiva combines the sharp intellectual enquiry with courageous activism.Time Magazine identified Dr. Shiva as an environmental “hero” in 2003 and Asia Week has called her one of the five most powerful communicators of Asia. Forbes magazine in November 2010 has identified Dr. Vandana Shiva as one of the top Seven most Powerful Women on the Globe.
Dr. Shiva has received honorary Doctorates from University of Paris, University of Western Ontario, University of Oslo and Connecticut College, University of Guelph. Among her many awards are the Alternative Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Award, 1993), Order of the Golden Ark, Global 500 Award of UN and Earth Day International Award. Lennon ONO grant for peace award by Yoko Ono in 2009, Sydney Peace Prize in 2010, Doshi Bridgebuilder Award, Calgary Peace Prize and Thomas Merton Award in the year 2011,the Fukuoka Award and The Prism of Reason Award in 2012, the Grifone d’Argento prize 2016 and The MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity 2016, Veerangana Award 2018, The Sanctuary Wildlife Award 2018 and International Environment Summit Award 2018.
Grant Jones (he/him) is a contemplative, musician, researcher, and activist. He is a co-founder of The Black Lotus Collective, a meditation community that centers the healing and liberation of individuals with historically marginalized identities (i.e. Black, Brown, Queer Folks, Folks with Disabilities). He is also a 3rd Year Clinical Psychology PhD candidate at Harvard University. His research and life work centers around developing and implementing contemplative and liberatory tools for underserved populations. His music is rooted in Black soul, R&B, and alternative music traditions. He loves his family, his friends, nature, travel, moving his body, and good food.
Ken Paller is a Professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he holds the James Padilla Chair in Arts & Sciences and also serves as Director of the Training Program in the Neuroscience of Human Cognition. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, received degrees from UCLA (BS) and UC San Diego (Neuroscience PhD), and then completed postdoctoral training at Yale, Manchester UK, and Berkeley. His research has focused on human memory and consciousness, using a variety of methods including electrophysiology, neuropsychology, and neuroimaging. His findings have contributed to understanding features of conscious memory experiences as well as ways in which memory operations differ in the absence of awareness of memory retrieval, as in implicit-memory priming, intuition, and implicit social bias. Some of his research has concerned patients with memory disorders, including evidence linking memory deficits to poor sleep. Recent studies from his lab showed that memory processing during sleep can reinforce prior learning, providing novel evidence on sleep’s role in memory. Investigations of the relevant physiological mechanisms are helping to elucidate the hidden but critical contributions of sleep to cognitive abilities, including remembering details and solving problems, as well as to well-being more generally.
Chris May’s interest in cognitive-emotional training underpins both his enthusiasm as an educator and his research in the contemplative sciences. Having worked as an assistant and association professor of psychology for 10 years at Carroll University in the United States, Chris now teaches and conducts research at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). Chris’ research interests have focused on the cognitive and emotional effects of multiple contemplative practices. In recent years, his attention has turned to the interpersonal influences of meditation. He also makes contributions to the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Shelley Aikman is a health psychologist and a professor of Psychological Science at the University of North Georgia. She studies health and social attitudes. She is interested in the impact of mindfulness on how individuals feel about themselves and the social world around them.
Paul Verhaeghen is a cognitive psychologist. As a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, he has mostly studied attention and memory in aging. As a long-time meditation practitioner, holding an MS in Buddhist Studies, he has recently expanded his research interest into the study of mindfulness. He is the author of Presence: How Mindfulness and Meditation Shape your Brain, Mind, and Life (Oxford University Press).
Tyralynn Frazier, Ph.D., MPH, is Lead Scientist for SEE Learning at the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics at Emory University. In her current role, she guides the center in developing a research program on the global implementation of SEE Learning and fundamental research on the science of compassion, ethics, and prosociality throughout human development. Prior to this role, she was awarded an NIH-funded FIRST Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at the Hubert Department of Global Health at Emory University. During this time, she received training in education research, led research studies on cross-cultural measurement development, and studied the implementation of mindfulness-based interventions among families experiencing food insecurity and domestic violence. Her research interests have included topics ranging from life-course stress and the bio-behavioral impact of violence experienced over child development on biological markers of stress and immune function to phenomenological explorations of compassion in the classroom. Fundamentally, her work aims to take a highly interdisciplinary approach to understand how, why, and when prosocial training programs within schools worldwide might be vehicles for positive and lasting transformations in equity, belonging, compassion, and well-being among every person touched by these systems. She received her Ph.D. from Emory University in biomedical anthropology and an MPH in epidemiology from Rollins School of Public Health.
