Becoming Conscious: The Science of Mindfulness

Speakers

Featuring

Richard Davidson, PhD

University of Wisconsin, Madison

William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Director of the Waisman Brain Imaging Lab and the Lab for Affective Neuroscience, Founder and Chair and the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ph.D. from Harvard in Psychology, at UW-Madison since 1984. He has published more than 290 articles, many chapters and reviews and edited 14 books. Author (with Sharon Begley) of "The Emotional Life of Your Brain" published by Penguin in 2012. Received a NIMH Research Scientist Award, a MERIT Award from NIMH, and the William James Fellow Award from the American Psychological Society. He is Past-President of the Society for Research in Psychopathology and of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. He was the year 2000 recipient of the most distinguished award for science given by the American Psychological Association - the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2006. In 2011, he was given the Paul D. MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences from 2011-2017 and as Chair of the Psychology section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science from 2011-2013.

Amishi Jha, PhD

University of Miami

Amishi P. Jha, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami. She received her PhD from University of California-Davis in 1998, received her post-doctoral training in the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University (Durham, NC, USA) in functional neuroimaging, and was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, before joining the University of Miami in 2010 to spearhead the development of their Neuroimaging Center. Her research program involves the use of functional MRI, electroencephalography (EEG), and neurobehavioral measures to investigate the basic mechanisms of attention and working memory. Over the last several years, her work has expanded to investigating if and how attention and working memory are altered with mental training techniques involving mindfulness-based practices in a variety of populations (including predeployment military service members, medical and nursing students, teachers, patients with ADHD, and children). Her work is supported by the Dept of Army, Medical Research and Material Command, NIH-NCCAM, and private foundation grants. Learn more about her work at amishi.com.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, Prof. Em.

University of Massachusetts Medical School

Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD is a scientist, writer, and meditation teacher. He is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he was founding executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (1995), and founder (in 1979) and former director of its world-renown Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic. He received his PhD in molecular biology from MIT in 1971 in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate, Salvador Luria. His research career focused on mind/body interactions for healing and on the clinical applications of mindfulness meditation training for people with chronic pain and stress-related disorders, including a work-site study of the effects of MBSR on the brain and how it processes emotions, particularly under stress, and on the immune system (in collaboration with Dr. Richard Davidson). Dr. Kabat-Zinn's work has contributed to a growing movement of mindfulness into mainstream institutions such as medicine, and psychology, health care, schools, corporations, prisons, and professional sports. Hospitals and medical centers around the world now offer clinical programs based on training in mindfulness and MBSR.

Dr. Kabat-Zinn has received numerous awards over the span of his career including the 2nd Annual Trailblazer Award for "pioneering work in the field of integrative medicine" from the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in La Jolla, California (2001) and the 2008 Mind and Brain Prize from the Center for Cognitive Science, University of Torino, Italy. Dr. Kabat-Zinn's many popular publications include "Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness" (Dell, 1990, 2005), "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life" (Hyperion, 1994, 2005), and "The Mind's Own Physician: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama on the Healing Power of Meditation" (editor, with Richard Davidson; New Harbinger, 2012). His books are published in over 30 languages.

Moderator

Steve Paulson

Executive Producer, Wisconsin Public Radio's nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge.

Steve Paulson is the executive producer and an interviewer with To the Best of Our Knowledge, the Peabody Award-winning radio program produced at Wisconsin Public Radio and syndicated nationally by Public Radio International. Paulson has written for Salon, Slate, Huffington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Independent and other publications. His radio reports have also been broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. His recent book, "Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science," was published by Oxford University Press.