Liz Grant is one of the Assistant Principals ( Presidents) of the University of Edinburgh with a remit for global health, Professor of Global Health and Development, Director of the Global Compassion Initiative and the Compassion Lab at the University’s Edinburgh Futures Institute. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), and the UK Royal Society of Arts. She is Deputy Dean International for the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh (RCPE).
Suzanne Bond is President of the Mind & Life Institute, assuming her role in March 2024. Throughout her career, Suzanne has worked across non-profit, corporate, and public sector organizations, applying her skills in organizational development to benefit the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people. With proven strategic acumen, she has served as an advisor to the White House, Congress, the State Department, non-profits, Fortune 100 companies, the UN, and governments worldwide. She has coached CEOs, prime ministers, cabinets, and boards seeking to navigate complex change.
For 19 years, Suzanne lived abroad, leading international development initiatives in dozens of countries, including lengthy engagements in Bhutan, Kenya, Thailand, and South Sudan. Prior to joining Mind & Life, she was Vice President of Programs for an international development firm, where she drove strategy and met revenue, new business, client satisfaction, and employee engagement goals. Previously, she worked with world-class management consulting firms such as Deloitte and Accenture.
Suzanne is a certified mindfulness meditation teacher and devoted contemplative practitioner. She lives just outside of Washington, DC and loves hiking, games, high adventure travel, and spending time with friends and her two grown children.
Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that bridges the scientific and religious worlds, and is being incubated at Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.
His work has been supported by multiple foundations, including the John Templeton Foundation, and his writings about the intersection of religion and science have been published in the books Seven Days, Many Voices and A Life of Meaning, as well as on The Huffington Post, Nautilus, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and My Jewish Learning. He has been an adjunct professor at both the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and the Academy for Jewish Religion, and is an internationally sought-out teacher, presenter, and scholar-in-residence.
From 2007 to 2014, he served as Assistant and then Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, and he appeared on Jeopardy! in March 2016, and lives in Westchester County with his wife Heather Stoltz, a fiber artist, with their daughter and son.
Dina Nayeri is the author of two novels and two books of creative nonfiction, Who Gets Believed? (2023) and The Ungrateful Refugee (2019), winner of the Geschwister Scholl Preis and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Kirkus Prize, and Elle Grand Prix des Lectrices, and called by The Guardian “a work of astonishing, insistent importance.” Her essay of the same name was one of The Guardian’s most widely read long reads in 2017, and is taught in schools and anthologized around the world. A 2019-2020 Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, and winner of the 2018 UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, Dina has won a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant, the O. Henry Prize, and Best American Short Stories, among other honors. Her work has been published in 20+ countries and in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Granta, and many other publications. Her short dramas have been produced by the English Touring Theatre and The Old Vic in London. She is a graduate of Princeton, Harvard, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. In autumn 2021, she was a Fellow at the American Library in Paris. She is currently working on plays, screenplays, and her upcoming publications include The Waiting Place, a nonfiction children’s book about refugee camp, Who Gets Believed, a creative nonfiction book, and Sitting Bird, a novel. She has recently joined the faculty at the University of St. Andrews.
Alicia Vasquez is a fifth-year PhD student in the Clinical Psychology program at Pacific University. With an academic emphasis in Latinx Psychology, Alicia has received extensive training in research, clinical, and outreach work that centers on the experience and needs of the Latinx community. As a first-generation Latinx student, she has unique insight into the importance of research that embraces the perspectives of the communities in which it is being conducted. As a post-doctoral student, Alicia plans to extend the current research to include the perspective of Latinx MBRP clients to work toward the development of a culturally-adapted MBRP model.
Kathy Trang (she/her), PhD, is a research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health. Her research has focused on elucidating how post-traumatic stress impacts mental health and developmental outcomes within and across generations and how we can best intervene in cross-cultural settings to improve wellbeing among high-risk populations in the United States, Vietnam, Peru, and Bangladesh. She is additionally interested in strengthening mental health research capacity in Southeast Asia and is one of the co-founders of the Southeast Asian Mental Heath Initiative, which brings together researchers, clinicians, and community leaders working in the field of mental health and psychosocial support.
Jonas Mago is a cognitive neuroscientist and wellbeing aficionado, interested in the cognitive mechanisms underlying human flourishing. His research investigates contemplative practices that aim to bring about wholesome states of mind – from meditation and prayer to collective cultural rituals and psychedelic therapies. Jonas works from an interdisciplinary perspective, combining cognitive, neurobiological, computational, and phenomenological approaches to shed light on mechanisms of self-regulation. Jonas is currently pursuing his doctoral studies in Neuroscience at McGill University, supervised by Dr. Michael Lifshitz and co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Karl Friston. Previously, he completed a master’s in Mind, Language, and Embodied Cognition at the University of Edinburgh (UK) and undergraduate studies in Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University College Maastricht (Netherlands).
Jenny Mascaro is an applied biological anthropologist whose research focuses on investigating the impact of mindfulness and compassion meditation practices on the well-being, compassion, and health of both hospitalized patients and their healthcare providers. Her research approach incorporates a mix of methods, such as ambulatory assessment of linguistic behavior, functional and structural neuroimaging, as well as clinical and psychosocial evaluations. Jenny’s work also delves into implementation science, aiming to systematically identify and assess innovative avenues for integrating well-being practices within hospital medicine. Beyond her professional pursuits, she finds joy in gardening alongside her dogs and chickens, cooking, hiking, and engaging in sports with her children. Jenny is a Mind & Life Fellow, has served as a reviewer for Mind & Life grants, and currently services as the Science and Grants Consultant for Mind & Life.
