Georges Dreyfus spent fifteen years in Buddhist monasteries before receiving,
in 1985, the title of Geshe, the highest degree conferred by Tibetan monastic universities. He then entered the University of Virginia where he received an MA and PhD in the History of Religions program. He is currently Professor of Religion of the Department of Religion at Williams College. He has published 5 books, including Recognizing Reality: Dharmakirti and his Tibetan Interpreters (1997) and The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: the Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk (2002), and many articles on various aspects of Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan culture. He has been chair of the Religion department at Williams College and chair of the Tibetan and Himalayan Religions group of the American Academy of Religion. He is the recipient of various awards such as a National Endowment for the Humanities.

Phillip R. Shaver, a social and personality psychologist, received his Ph. D. in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1970 and is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He has served on the faculties of Columbia University, New York University, University of Denver, and SUNY at Buffalo. He is associate editor of Attachment and Human Development, a member of the editorial boards of Personal Relationships, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and New Review of Social Psychology, and a former member of study sections for NIH and NSF. He has received numerous research grants and published several books, including Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes, Measures of Political Attitudes, and Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications, and more than 150 scholarly journal articles and book chapters.

His current research focuses on emotions, close relationships, and personal development, especially from the perspective of attachment theory. In recent years he has been collaborating with Professor Mario Mikulincer, of Bar-Ilan University (Israel), on questionnaire, observational, and experimental studies of attachment security, compassion, and altruism, focusing especially on the ways in which attachment security (increased experimentally) fosters compassion and virtuous behavior, such as helping others in need and forgiving people who have been hurtful.

He has made notable contributions to the scientific literatures on human emotions, close relationships, and the psychology of religion. In 2002, he received a Distinguished Career Award from the International Association for Relationship Research.

Helen J. Neville was awarded the B.A. degree from the University of British Columbia, an M.A. from Simon Fraser University and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Her postdoctoral training was at the University of California, San Diego in the Department of Neurosciences. Her major research interests are the biological constraints and the role of experience in neurosensory and neu rocognitive development in humans. Methods include behavioral measures and event-related brain potentials (ERPs), and structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Her work experience includes Director of the Laboratory for Neuropsychology at the Salk Institute and Professor, Department of Cognitive Science, UCSD. Dr. Neville is currently The Robert and Beverly Lewis Endowed Chair and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Associate Director Oi ile institute of Neuroscience, Director of the Brain Development Lab, and Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She has published in many books and journals including Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cerebral Cortex and Brain Research. She has received many honors and is a member of the Board of Governors of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, the Academic Panel of Birth to Three and is active in many educational outreach programs.

Kazuo Murakami is the director of a research team on mind/heart and genes and an emeritus professor at the University of Tsukuba (Applied biochemistry) in Japan. He was educated at Kyoto University in Japan, where he received his BA and PhD in biochemistry. His professional fields are 1) biochemistry, molecular biology of cardiovascular disease; and 2) the relationship between mind and genes. Professor Murakami has also written more than 400 chapters and journal articles in the above fields. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work including the Max Plank Research Award (Humboldt Foundation, Germany ) and the Japan Academy Prize (Japan Academy). He has proposed a hypothesis on the interaction between mind/heart and genes and is focusing on the relationship between positive emotion and gene regulation.

Michael J. Meaney is James McGill Professor of Medicine at Douglas Hospital Research Centre of McGill University. He is the Director of the Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment Project and of the Developmental Neuroendocrinology Laboratory of McGill University. Dr. Meaney was educated at Loyola College of Montreal and received his PhD from Concordia University (Montreal) with post-doctoral training at The Rockefeller University in New York. Over this period Dr. Meaney’s primary research interest was on the effects of early experience on gene expression and development.

His research is multidisciplinary and includes studies of behaviour and physiology, to molecular biology and genetics. The primary objective of these studies is to define the processes that govern gene environment interactions. He has authored over 225 journal articles and has been the recipient of a Scientist Award from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and a Distinguished Scientist Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders. He currently holds a CIHR Senior Scientist Award. Graduates from Dr. Meaney’s lab hold faculty appointments across North America and Europe, including Queen’s University, University of California at Berkeley, University of British Columbia, University of Michigan, and the RIKEN Institute. Research in the Meaney lab is funded by grants from Canadian, American and Japanese agencies.

Fred H. Gage is Adler Professor in the Laboratory of Genetics at Salk Institute. He joined The Salk Institute in 1995. Prior to that he held positions as the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Lund, Sweden. He received his PhD in 1976 from The Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gage’s work concentrates on the adult central nervous system and unexpected structural plasticity that the brain retains throughout the life of all mammals. Surprisingly, this structural plasticity is regulated by experience; thus his studies also focus on the cellular, molecular, and environmental influences that regulate structural changes in the adult and aged brain.

He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Gage also served as president of the Society for Neuroscience in 2002. Dr. Gage has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the 1993 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health and Education, the Christopher Reeve Research Medal in 1997, the 1999 Max Planck Research Prize, and the MetLife Award in 2002.