Melike has been fascinated with the brain from an early age, realising that this remarkable organ holds the key to our dreams and creativity, but also our fears
and prejudices. Her research interests fall within the domains of social psychology and social neuroscience. Specifically, her research focuses on intergroup relations and identifying the factors that affect how we see and respond to members of social (racial) outgroups. She believes that a deeper understanding of implicit brain processes that drive behaviour is key.

As a senior researcher in the Historical Trauma and Transformation unit at Stellenbosch University, she leads the neuroscientific investigation of empathy, specifically in intergroup contexts. This research is central to understanding the enduring effects of racial discrimination, and how these effects may impact the way people respond to outgroup members. This work is of particular importance in the South African context, with our unique cross-cultural environment and historical divisions that continue to persist after apartheid.

Melike is interested in examining indigenous knowledge systems in Africa in the
area of contemplative practices, much in the way the Tibetan yogi’s were initially investigated using scientific methods. In this regard, traditional healers (sangomas) routinely make use of rituals and practices of which the underlying mechanism of healing and/or scientific merit remains unexplored. Work of this nature would contribute an African perspective to the rich dialogue between the East and the West on the science of contemplative practices.

Karen is a PhD Neuroscience student at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her current PhD project tested the hypotheses that attention and well-being can improve in novices with mindfulness meditation training. Her study investigated changes in brain activity associated with attention after mindfulness training, as well as cortical volume, thickness and surface changes of the brain associated with attention after mindfulness training. My areas of interest are contemplative practices, structural and functional neuro-imaging, and human brain mapping.

She hopes to make a difference in my country and in Africa. Neuroscience and brain imaging are very recent developments on the African continent. She was the first student to conduct an fMRI experiment in Pretoria. Teaching students from different faculties about imaging and developing our potential in mapping the brain, here and in Africa, is currently one of her primary objectives.

African contemplative practices and mindfulness are relatively unexplored in this country and it is therefore an equally primary and personal objective to grow this field. South Africa is fraught with poverty, crime, racial tension and violence. We have been celebrated internationally when we’ve demonstrated our strong desire to heal past tragedies and embrace our cultural differences. She believes African mindfulness-based interventions may provide a significant tool for healing and well-being in South Africa, both at an individual and societal level. She also believes that African contemplative practices could play a significant role in peace, reconciliation and social justice in South Africa and Africa, and importantly, contribute significantly as the third partner at the dialogue table between Science and Buddhism.

I served on the planning committee of the first ever contemplative neuroscience conference in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2014. I also served on the Logistical and Program Committees for the first African Mind & Life dialogue with his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama that was scheduled to take place in Botswana in August 2017. I’m currently the facilitator of Africa Mind & Brain, the first ever African contemplative neuroscience lab at the Neuroscience Institute of the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Bandile Seleme is an emerging Black-queer Drama Therapist, performer, academic and activist. He works for a non-profit organisation (NPO), Lawyers against Abuse (LvA) in Diepsloot that offers psychosocial and legal services for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV).

In his work, Bandile is interested in how drama therapy may be a relevant process that is critically reflexive of an individual’s contextual needs and aspirations. Ultimately, how may drama therapy within a South African context facilitate the process to achieve social justice and transformation?’

Sinethemba completed her first degrees at UKZN before proceeding – via a Fulbright Scholarship – to complete a Master’s degree in drama therapy at New York University. She has worked as a lecturer in applied drama, drama therapy,
Drama in Education, and acting at Wits University and the University of Pretoria. She is currently doing her PhD in medical humanities and Psychology at WISER. Her PhD explores the construction of mental health by traditional healers. She is well positioned as she is trained in both psychology and traditional healing. Sinethemba has published an article in The Arts in Psychotherapy titled “The missing links: A South African perspective on the theories of health in drama therapy”. She later published a book chapter Applied Theatre: Performing Health and Wellbeing titled “From the traditional to the theatrical: Forms and Performances of treating depression in South Africa”. She has worked as an applied drama facilitator at Themba Interactive, an organisation that utilises applied drama and participatory methods to tackle complex issues related to HIV and AIDS within correctional centres, with orphaned and vulnerable children as well as their caregivers, high school students and their teachers.

Faith is a Drama Therapist and Lecturer at Drama forLife, Wits. Her Masters thesis was a critical analysis of storytelling as a drama therapy approach among urban South African children, with particular reference to resilience building through Iintsomi (as oral tradition, story telling method).

Warren Nebe, a former TEDx speaker, is the founder and director of Drama for Life. He is a theatre director, senior lecturer, a HPCSA and NADT registered drama therapist, a Fulbright Alumni and Salzburg Global Fellow. He was the founder of The Company@Maitisong in Botswana where he co-created “My Brother’s Bones” and “Sephiri se Dule”. He was previous managing director of Themba Interactive – Initiatives for Life. His performance research focuses on identity construction, representation and memory in South Africa through an auto-ethnographic theatre-making approach. Notions of identity are explored, through his direction, in performance collaborations, “ID Pending”, “Hayani”, “Through Positive Eyes” and “Morwa: The Rising Son”, each receiving numerous awards. Warren is also a research member of the Apartheid Archives Research Project. Warren’s primary research focus is on the development of a counter-hegemonic pedagogy, a critical reflexive praxis at Drama for Life appropriate for the purposes of Applied Drama and Theatre, Drama Education, Drama Therapy and Performance Ethnography in Africa. Warren also curated the SA Theatre Season in 2010,” Honouring the Archive: Theatre, Memory and Social Justice”, and again in 2011, entitled: “SA Theatre Season: The Personal Archive: Diversity in Conversation”. Warren has chaired the Drama for Life Africa Research Conference since its inception in 2008. Warren was awarded the Vice-Chancellor Award for Transformation in 2013, and the Drama for Life Team were awarded the Vice-Chancellor Award for Academic Citizenship for 2014. Warren is currently directing a ground breaking 5 nation site specific processional peerformance focusing on human rights and social justice for LGBTIQ communities in Africa through to 2017 called “AfriQueer: Who Put the Stars in the Sky?” Warren is currently leading a social change project called “Build a President” – based on the legacy of Nelson Mandela – as a social media democracy education project.