I am a doctoral student in Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, specializing in Vajrayana Buddhist practice and contemplative studies. As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor integrating clinical psychology and Buddhist and Yogic approaches, I aim to identify and share the benefits and applicability of contemplative practices. After developing a mindfulness and yoga-based wellness curriculum, I trained Department of Public Health, Juvenile Justice, and Department of Social Services treatment providers on implementation. While working in South Asian Buddhist communities for two years developing programs to address substance use and mental health issues, I decided to return to graduate school to deepen my understanding of traditional Buddhist practices and their integration with the developing field of Contemplative Studies. My fieldwork will focus on contemporary Buddhist practices as they are practiced in South Asian Buddhist communities, and their relationship to cultural context and psychological wellbeing.

Dr. Zabelina is a an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Arkansas. She received her Ph.D. at Northwestern University, and completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work focuses on understanding creative cognition, imagination, and other related processes, and how these processes are linked with more traditional subfields of cognitive psychology, such as attention and executive functions. In her work, she uses a variety of approaches, including behavioral, genetic, electrophysiological (EEG and ERP), and functional MRI (fMRI) techniques. She also does work on mind-wandering, mindfulness, problem solving, the influence of technology on creativity and imagination, and what happens to creativity as we age. Dr. Zabelina is the director of the Mechanisms of Attention and Cognition (MoCA) laboratory, where the long-term objective is to create a theoretical foundation upon which to develop methods to enhance creative thinking, imagination, and problem-solving abilities.

Jacqueline Lutz, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion (CMC), Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, MA. She received her PhD in psychology from the University of Zurich, working in the emotion regulation research group at the Psychiatric University clinic and under the supervision of Prof. Lutz Jäncke. 

Jacqueline’s research interests are in the fields of affective neuroscience, emotion regulation, mindfulness, self-referential processes, and their implication for clinical psychology. At CMC, and in collaboration with the MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, she conducts an fMRI pilot study to investigate the potential of mindfulness training in a primary care setting, particularly related to self-regulation. Further, she is developing new translational research to gain a more precise understanding of psychological and physiologic processes related to self-compassion. In the future, she wishes to further investigate who profits from which contemplative and mind-body intervention.

Lauren Ministero received a BA with high honors in psychology as well as journalism and new media from The University at Buffalo. She is currently a 5^th year PhD student studying social psychology at The University at Buffalo. Her research interests include compassion, mindfulness, goal pursuit, and the self. A central question that guides Lauren’s work is: What personal and situational factors facilitate responding to victims of suffering, and how do these factors simultaneously impact the self? Previous research demonstrates that compassion predicts helping behavior as well as distress and avoidance. In her research, Lauren examines which components of compassion are truly predictive of helping, and how mindset can affect goal pursuit processes, tipping the scales in favor of pursuing prosocial goals. Additionally, she investigates how factors such as empathy and mindfulness influence how the self is expressed. In her spare time, Lauren enjoys yoga, exercise, and plant-based cooking. 

Sarah Priddy, MSSW, LCSW, is a doctoral student at the University of Utah College of Social Work. Her primary research interest lies in the intersection of social work and neuroscience – the treatment of stress-related conditions, such as addiction, anxiety, trauma and chronic pain through mindfulness-based clinical interventions. Sarah’s interest in mindfulness-based therapies has developed over the past six years through training in and implementation of mindfulness-based interventions.  Sarah currently works with Dr. Eric Garland at the University of Utah, assisting with the several randomized controlled trials of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) for chronic pain and opioid misuse. Sarah is honored to have received a Francisco J. Varela Research Award to conduct a mixed methods RCT of MORE for pregnant women prescribed opioid maintenance therapy.

Joseph Therriault is currently pursuing his master’s in neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Canada under the supervision of Dr. Vasavan Nair and Dr. Pedro Rosa-Neto. His research focuses on using multimodal neuroimaging tools to understand the aging brain in health and disease. In particular, he is interested in understanding the factors that are protective against neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease. To this end, he is currently studying the effects of meditation and yoga on the aging brain. He is also researching how levels of self-awareness are related to neurodegeneration in aging. Finally, his lab is evaluating tools to better understand and diagnose brain disorders so we can give people the best medical treatments possible. Outside of neurology, he is interested in the meaningful integration of Buddhist psychology and philosophy into modern Western meditation training programs designed for psychological well-being.