Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is Professor and Research Chair for Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University. Her work focuses mainly on two strands of research: exploring intergenerational repercussions of oppression and institutional violence, and exploring what she terms “reparative humanism” which builds on her earlier work on the relationship between remorse and forgiveness after historical trauma. She loves coastal walks and is a patron of the theatre as well as of opera and listens to jazz at home.
Anthony King, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at University of Michigan Medical School, and faculty associate of Institute for Social Research (ISR) and Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety Research Group, is a clinical psychologist and translational neuroscience researcher, whose research focuses on neuroimaging (fMRI), genomic, and epigenetic effects of trauma exposure, and psychotherapeutic interventions for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), including Contemplative practices. He is lead author of a clinical trial of MBCT for PTSD, and co-PI of a 5-year federally-funded research program to develop a Mindfulness- and Compassion-based therapy for PTSD in military veterans (Iraq & Afghanistan), and test its clinical and neurobiological effects using fMRI brain imaging.
Alfred Kaszniak, PhD received his doctorate in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and completed an internship and postdoctoral training in clinical neuropsychology at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. He is currently Director of the Neuropsychology, Emotion, and Meditation Laboratory, Faculty and Advisory Board member of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute, Faculty Advisory Board Member of the Center for Compassion Studies, and a professor in the departments of Psychology, Neurology, and Psychiatry at The University of Arizona (UA). He is the co-author or editor of seven books, and over 160 journal articles and chapters, on topics including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, healthy aging, consciousness, memory self-monitoring, emotion, the psychophysiology of long-term and short-term meditation, and contemplative pedagogy. He has also received dharma transmission in Zen Buddhism, and serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Upaya Zen Center.
James Henry Austin was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1925. He attended Brown University, graduated from Harvard Medical School (1948), and did his medical internship at Boston City Hospital, where his first year of residency was in neurology. Austin’s neurology teachers were Derek Denny Brown, Raymond Adams and Joseph Foley.
Austin’s two years of naval reserve service in neurology were spent in Yokohama, Japan and in Oakland, California. In 1953, he began a neuropathology fellowship at Columbia University in New York, and then completed his neurological residency at the Neurological Institute of New York.
From 1955 to 1967, he held successive academic appointments in Neurology at the University of Oregon Medical School. In 1967, he was appointed Head of the Division of Neurology at the University of Colorado Medical School, then Chair of the Department from 1974 to 1983, and Emeritus Professor in 1992. During retirement, his appointments have included Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Idaho and Courtesy Professor of Neurology at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
His earlier research was in clinical neurology, neuropathology, neurochemistry, and neuropharmacology. His first sabbatical was spent at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. During the second sabbatical at Kyoto University Medical School in 1974, he began Zen meditative training with Kobori-Roshi, an English-speaking Rinzai Zen master. As a Zen practitioner, he has since become keenly interested in the ways that neuroscience research can help clarify the meditative transformations of consciousness.
Austin’s interest in the psychology of the creative process led him to write Chase, Chance, and Creativity, published first by Columbia University Press in 1978, and then revised in 2003 as an MIT Press edition.
His interest in Zen Buddhism has led to four MIT Press books. Zen and the Brain (1998), currently in its 7th printing, was followed by Zen Brain Reflections (2006), Selfless Insight (2009), Meditating Selflessly (2011), Zen Brain Horizons (2014), Living Zen Remindfully (2016).
His marriage to Judith St. Clair has been blessed with three children (Scott W. Austin, Lynn S. Manning and James W. Austin) and three grandchildren (Nicholas Manning, Katharine Manning and Elizabeth Manning). His wife passed away from Alzheimer’s disease in 2004. Austin lives in Columbia, Missouri.
Rick Hecht is Research Director of the Osher Center, and Professor of Medicine at UCSF. He received his MD from SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn, and completed Internal Medicine residency at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine Residency Program in Social Medicine. He received training in clinical research methods during a fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology at UCSF. Following fellowship, Dr. Hecht developed a multidisciplinary research program investigating early (primary) HIV infection. He has served as co-director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research Behavioral and Epidemiology core, a board member of the HIV Medicine Association, and an Associate Editor of “AIDS Clinical Care.”
At the UCSF Osher Center, Dr. Hecht has built a research program that focuses on mind-body interventions, particularly meditation and yoga, using a psychoneuroimmunology approach to studying the effects of these practices on the endocrine, metabolic and immune systems. He is the author of over 200 peer-reviewed articles, and has been the principal investigator of eight grants from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including two Center for Excellence in Research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine grants. He directs the UCSF Training in Research in Integrative Medicine fellowship program, funded by NCCIH.
