Robert Sharf, PhD, is the DH Chen Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California – Berkeley, where he also serves as Chair of the Center for Buddhist Studies. His primary area of research is medieval Chan and Zen Buddhism, but he has also published on East Asian Esoteric Buddhism, Buddhist material culture, Buddhist modernism, ritual studies, and the study of religious and meditative experience. He is author of Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise (2002), co-editor of Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context (2001), and is currently working on a book titled Thinking about Not Thinking: Buddhist Struggles with Mindlessness, Insentience, and Nirvana. He is ordained in the Hossõ tradition at Kõfukuji in Nara.
Antoine Lutz, PhD is an Associate Scientist at the Laboratory For Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior at the Waisman Center in the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests focus on the role of large-scale neuronal integration (neural synchrony mechanisms) during various mental states (voluntary attention, emotion generation) and on the impact of standard meditation techniques on basic affective, cognitive and social functions and on the brain mechanisms that subserve these processes. His research has been largely supported by grants from the National Institute of Health. He is associated with the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds in Madison. He received his PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Paris University under the supervision of Dr. Francisco Varela. He did his post-doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the supervision of Dr. Richard Davidson.
Michel Bitbol, PhD, is Directeur de Recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, in Paris, France. He is presently based at the Archives Husserl, a center of research in Phenomenology. He was educated at several universities in Paris, where he received successively his MD in 1980, his PhD in Physics in 1985, and his “Habilitation” in Philosophy in 1997. Michel worked as a research scientist in biophysics from 1978 to 1990. Thereafter, he turned to the philosophy of physics. He published a book entitled Schrödinger’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics (1996), and also worked on a neo-Kantian interpretation of quantum mechanics. In 1997 he was the recipient of an award from the Academie des sciences morales et politiques for his work in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. Later on, he focused on the hotly debated connections between the philosophy of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind. He published a book on that topic in 2000, and worked in close collaboration with Francisco Varela around this time. He is presently developing a conception of consciousness inspired from neurophenomenology, and an epistemology of first-person knowledge. Michel also learned Sanskrit to better understand basic texts by Nagarjuna and Candrakirti, and recently published a book De l’intérieur du monde: pour une philosophie et une science des relations, 2010 in which he draws a parallel between Buddhist interdependence and non-supervenient relations in quantum physics and the theory of knowledge.
After completing my PhD in Cognitive Science at Emory University, I conducted postdoctoral research in the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Lab at Northeastern University and the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. I am currently a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Healthy Minds at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I approach studying emotional well-being from my roots in cognitive and affective science. I began my career investigating a situated, embodied view of the mind from cognitive science in a domain relevant to mental health: emotion. This constructionist approach generated new questions about the varied and complex emotions that people experience. To translate this theoretical approach into research addressing well-being, I started collaborating with interdisciplinary faculty studying Eastern philosophy and contemplative practices. Our dialogue revealed that modern constructionist approaches to the mind and centuries-old Buddhist philosophy share an emphasis on the dynamic and malleable nature of emotions. This theoretical convergence motivated studying emotional skills that may contribute to well-being, including skillsets targeted in contemplative traditions. My interdisciplinary work at the Center for Healthy Minds examines how emotional skillsets are conceptualized and measured, and whether learning such skills contributes to well-being, resilience, and healing.
