UPAYA - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Senior Fellow at Mozilla Foundation

Abeba Birhane (PhD) is a Senior Fellow at Mozilla Foundation. Her interdisciplinary research examines the indeterminable and ambiguous nature of people (as complex adaptive systems) and the problems that arise with machine prediction of such systems.

Job Titles:

• Professor

Professor Frank received his PhD in Physics (1992) from University of Washington. He held postdoctoral and visiting scientist positions at Leiden University and the University of Minnesota. In 1995, he was awarded a Hubble Fellowship. He joined the University as an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy in 1996. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2000 and to Professor in 2004. He received a University Bridging Fellowship in 2005. Astrophysicist Adam Frank is a leading expert on the final stages of evolution for stars like the sun, and his computational research group at the University of Rochester has developed advanced supercomputer tools for studying how stars form and how they die. A self-described "evangelist of science," he is also committed to showing others the beauty and power of science, and exploring the proper context of science in culture. His research is in the general area of Theoretical Astrophysics, and in particular the hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic evolution of matter ejected from stars. Current research topic include jets from Young Stellar Objects, bipolar outflows from evolved stars such as Planetary Nebulae and Massive stars. Investigations are carried out though the use of large scale numerical simulations. For more detail, see the Theoretical Astrophysics page. Professor Frank is also active member of the department's Plasma Physics program, which is part of the University's interdisciplinary program in High-Energy Density Plasmas. In collaboration with faculty at the University's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (an Inertial Confinement Fusion facility), he is conducting plasma astrophysical research on topics such as magnetic diffusion in interstellar clouds and the evolution of solar magnetic flux tubes. Professor Frank is also actively involved in science outreach as a popular science writer. He has contributed articles to Discover and Astronomy magazines. He received the science-writing prize from the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society in 1999, For further details, go to Professor Frank's home page at: http://www.adamfrankscience.com.

Al Kaszniak received his Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and completed an internship in clinical neuropsychology at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. He is presently Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Faculty Advisory Board Member of the Center for Compassion Studies, and Pedagogy Fellow at the University of Arizona (UA). He formerly served as Director of the Neuropsychology, Emotion, and Meditation Laboratory, Faculty and Advisory Board member of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute, and a professor in the departments of Psychology, Neurology, and Psychiatry at The UA. He also formerly served as Head…

Alonso Méndez is a Tzeltal Maya cultural astronomer who has spent more than twenty years researching the astronomical knowledge of the Pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas. Born in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Alonso spent much of his youth surrounded by the vibrant highland Maya culture of the Tzeltal and Tzotzil. as well as the emergent movement in anthropology and ethnography that occurred during the 60s and 70s. In this atmosphere of dynamic contact between cultures Alonso grew and witnessed critical changes that altered the physical and cultural landscape of Chiapas. Alonso attended Middlebury College. Graduating in 1987 with a degree in Fine Arts. His skill as an artist would prove critically useful when in 1997 he joined the archaeological projects in Palenque first as project artist with the Palenque Mapping Project and subsequently with the Proyecto Grupo de las Cruces and the Proyecto Arqueologico Palenque. During this time Alonso produced drawings that documented the new discoveries, and developed 3d reconstructive drawings of the site. In this atmosphere of discovery, he began to conduct astronomical investigations at Palenque and other important sites in the area, and discovered many new astronomical alignments in the major temples as well as new understanding of the hieroglyphic texts. He has published these findings, and has participated in educational programs with focus on Indigenous science and knowledge through NASA and the Smithsonian, NMAI. Alonso also participated as co scriptwriter for the full dome planetary production of Maya astronomy for the Chabot Planetarium in San Francisco, and advisor to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry exhibit Lenses on the Sky. Alonso continues his work in cultural astronomy as a research associate with the Solstice Project in Santa Fe and the Maya Exploration Center of Austin Texas and currently lives with his family in Taos NM.

Andreas Roepstorff, Ph.D. is Professor, Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience and Department of Social Anthropology, Aarhus University / Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark. As an anthropologist in neuroscience, Andreas tries to maintain a dual perspective. He studies the workings of the brain, particularly at the levels of consciousness, cognition and communication. He is equally interested in how brain imaging, as a field of knowledge production, relates to other scientific and public fields. He is project manager of Technologies of the Mind. People have a unique capability to change actions, behavior and their ways of organizing. The technologies that surround us influence our perception of the world, but at the same time our ways of organizing ourselves is part of a technology that influences the world we are living in. How are we going to understand the interaction between technology, practice, and cognition? This project is focusing on how human thought activity exploits technology and culture and how it is influenced in return. Usually the brain is seen as a biological and "natural" part of the body, that can be separated from "artificial" inventions like culture and technology. As opposed to this, this project tries to understand technology as a way of using the brain and body, incorporated into practices that people develop naturally to reach different objectives. This project includes resources from the fields of anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and cognitive sciences to investigate e.g. rituals, reading and writing, masquerades, and physical objects. Andreas edited Imagining Nature: Practices of Cosmology and Identity, coedited Trusting the Subject? Volume 1 and Trusting the Subject, Volume 2, coauthored Concrete spatial language: See what I mean?, To musicians, the message is in the meter: Pre-attentive neuronal responses to incongruent rhythm are left-lateralized in musicians, Trust or Interaction?, and What's at the top in the top-down control of action? Script-sharing and "top-top" control of action in cognitive experiments, and authored Cellular Neurosemiotics: Outline of an interpretive framework, Mapping Brain Mappers: An Ethnographic Coda, and A double dissociation in twentieth century psychology? A commentary on Bernard Baars: The Double Life of BF Skinner. Read the full list of his publications! Andreas earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Biology at the University of Aarhus in 1995. He earned his BA and MA in Social Anthropology at the University of Aarhus in 1996. He earned his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at the University of Aarhus in 2002. Read Two Heads Are Better Than One - With the Right Partner.

Billy Collins is an American phenomenon. No poet since Robert Frost has managed to combine high critical acclaim with such broad popular appeal. His work has appeared in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The American Scholar, he is a Guggenheim fellow and a New York Public Library "Literary Lion." His last three collections of poems have broken sales records for poetry. His readings are usually standing room only, and his audience - enhanced tremendously by his appearances on National Public Radio - includes people of all backgrounds and age groups. The poems themselves best explain this phenomenon. The typical Collins poem opens on a clear and hospitable note but soon takes an unexpected turn; poems that begin in irony may end in a moment of lyric surprise. No wonder Collins sees his poetry as "a form of travel writing" and considers humor "a door into the serious." It is a door that many thousands of readers have opened with amazement and delight. Billy Collins has published twelve collections of poetry, including Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poems, Nine Horses, The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems, Ballistics, Horoscopes for the Dead, and Picnic, Lightning. His books "Billy Collins writes lovely poems… Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious than they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others besides." - John Updike Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems 2003 - 2013, The Rain in Portugal, and Whale Day And Other Poems were New York Times bestsellers. A collection of his haiku, She Was Just Seventeen, was published by Modern Haiku Press in fall 2006. He has also published two chapbooks, Video Poems and Pokerface. In addition, he has edited two anthologies of contemporary poetry: Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry and 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, was the guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2006, and edited Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, illustrated by David Allen Sibley. He is currently working on his next book of poetry titled Musical Tables (Penguin Random House, November 15, 2022). Included among the honors Billy Collins has received are fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has also been awarded the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize, the Frederick Bock Prize, and the Levinson Prize - all awarded by Poetry magazine. He has also received the Aiken-Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry, The Hall-Kenyon Prize,the Mailer Prize for Poetry, and the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. In October 2004, Collins was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Poetry Foundation's Mark Twain Award for Humor in Poetry. In June 2001, Billy Collins was appointed United States Poet Laureate 2001-2003. In January 2004, he was named New York State Poet Laureate 2004-06. He is a former Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York. In 2016 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters.

Brenda (Bree) Phillips is a graduate from the Upaya Chaplaincy Program in March 2021. She is a lecturer in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Boston University. She is also the director of the BU Lab for Contemplative Studies. She holds a doctorate (PhD) in developmental psychology and a master's degree (MA) in clinical psychology. Brenda's research focuses on social cognition and resilience. She studies how women with cancer grapple with existential issues and struggle to voice their self-care needs in the midst of social obligations. She also studies perceptions of nature and the impact of living in fence-line communities on women's mental health. As a clinician, Brenda has worked primarily with trauma survivors in marginalized communities. For several years, she worked as a psychotherapist supporting the needs of low-income and homeless parents and their young children. As a chaplain, Brenda leads meditation support groups for college students and clients of the Healing Garden Cancer Support Center in Harvard, MA.

Bridget Belgrave's work is influenced by her training in and teaching of: mathematics, philosophy, Cecil Collin's approach to life drawing, the Alexander Technique, Energy Healing, Psychosynthesis, Effective Intelligence, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Internal Family Systems (IFS). She has been teaching NVC since 1996. She is a certified trainer with CNVC, was involved in introducing NVC in the UK and India, and leads workshops in Europe, North America and Asia. Her workshops often involve training NVC trainers and others in her innovative methodologies, such as The NVC Dance Floors (co-created with Gina Lawrie) and A Key to NVC. She continues to develop new ways to learn, teach and share NVC. She has a deep love of prayer and meditation. She also paints and writes. This Life Resources website is mainly focused on her NVC work. Her other website is: www.BodyBeing.org Bridget founded Life Resources in 1997. She lives with her husband Ruud Baanders in Oxford. She collaborates with many people, some of whom are profiled here.

Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2010 - 2016. During her tenure, Ms. Figueres brought together national and sub-national governments, corporations and activists, women's groups, scientists and spiritual communities, financial institutions and NGOs to jointly deliver the historic 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Under this Agreement, 195 sovereign governments decided on a collaborative path to limit future global warming to well below 2°C, and strive for 1.5°C in order to protect the most vulnerable in every nation. For this achievement Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy and received multiple awards. Since then Ms. Figueres has continued to foster rapid action on climate change. She is the co-author of The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis (Penguin Random House 2019) and co-host of the popular podcast Outrage and Optimism. She sits on the Board of ACCIONA Energía. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the London School of Economics and has been awarded multiple honorary doctorate degrees from academic institutions such as Yale, University of Massachusetts, Georgetown and University of Edinburgh. After decades of living and working abroad, she has moved back to her beloved Costa Rica. She has two fantastic daughters, Naima and Yihana, fountains of much joy.

Chris is an epidemiologist and Principal of Howson & Partners for Global Health, a consulting firm based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He specializes in developing global health networks to promote exchanges of knowledge, experience and expertise among in-country experts, with the goal of establishing and evaluating preventive health education programs and improving service delivery and health outcomes in lower-income countries. Chris received a B.A. from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of California at Los Angeles. Prior to coming to Santa Fe, he directed the global health programs at the National Academy of Medicine in Washington, DC, and the March of Dimes Foundation in White Plains, NY. Chris has authored and edited more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and books on a range of global health issues, including maternal and newborn health, nutrition, emerging infections and the threat of bioterrorism. Locally, Chris volunteers as Coordinator for Citizenship Training at Literacy Volunteers of Santa Fe and within the St. Elizabeth Shelter and Supportive Housing Program. He joined the Upaya Board in 2006 and lives in Santa Fe with his wife, Marie.

Clayton Dalton, MD works as an emergency physician in western New Mexico. He has a medical degree from Columbia University, and completed residency training at Harvard. He has been a student of Zen Buddhism since 2009.

Job Titles:

• Public Health Physician

David Addiss is a public health physician whose work has focused on the prevention and treatment of neglected tropical diseases - causes of immense suffering and disability worldwide. He has worked as a general medical practitioner in migrant health and, for 20 years, was an epidemiologist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 2006 to 2010, David directed the Fetzer Institute's program in science and spirituality. He completed the chaplaincy training program at Upaya Zen Center in 2014, where his thesis was on the role of the Buddhist chaplain in global health. David's experience at Fetzer and Upaya sparked a deep interest in the fundamental role of compassion in global health. Since 2011, he has been at the Task Force for Global Health, where he now directs the Focus Area for Compassion and Ethics (FACE). His interests include prevention of neglected tropical diseases, global health ethics, the epidemiology of love and compassion, and the role of compassion in global health.

Job Titles:

• Principal and Founder of LongView Asset Management

David Cantor is a principal and founder of LongView Asset Management, LLC, a registered investment advisor in Santa Fe, NM specializing in socially responsible investing. David also serves as Treasurer of Conservation Voters New Mexico (CVNM) and on the finance committee of the Santa Fe Art Institute. David grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, where he developed an early love of mountains. He is a longtime meditator, an avid skier, hiker, mushroom hunter, and cook. David received his Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Oxford University.

Job Titles:

• Attorney

David Kaufman is an attorney specializing in health care and regulatory law and has represented health insurance companies, providers, and other health care entities for more than 30 years. Most recently he co-founded Laurus Law Group LLC, a specialty practice focusing on healthcare and corporate issues. Prior to joining Laurus, David practiced at major law firms in Chicago and Los Angeles and served as General Counsel for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois. Earlier in his career, he was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of New Mexico. David has served on the Upaya board and has been a member of the sangha for many years. David lives in Santa Fe with his partner, Elizabeth Jacobson, the former Poet Laureate of Santa Fe. They have two adult children, Willa and Oliver Kaufman.

Job Titles:

• Writer

Dorotea Mendoza is a writer, community organizer, and Zen practitioner. Though she mostly writes fiction, and loves the flash form, she has also written essays on social activism and Socially Engaged Buddhism. She has worked with women's organizations in the US and in the Philippines around issues such as militarism, sex trafficking, domestic and gender-based violence. She currently organizes with Black Breath Sits, the Buddhist Action Coalition, and Sari-Sari Women of Color Arts Coup. Earlier this year she facilitated Inside Out: Sitting, Writing, and Being Fully in this World (Online 2022), through Upaya with Sensei Kozan. She has visited Upaya a number of times, as assistant to Natalie Goldberg in sit, walk, write retreats. Dorotea was born in the Philippines and grew up in New York City. She now lives in Brooklyn with her partner Matthew and 53 house plants. You can find her at www.doroteamendoza.com.

Job Titles:

• Bunting Professor of Clinical Ethics and Professor of Nursing

Dr. Cynda Hylton Rushton is the Bunting Professor of Clinical Ethics and Professor of Nursing and Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University Berman Institute of Bioethics and Schools of Nursing & Medicine. She is the Co-Chair of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Ethics Committee and Consultation Service. A clinician, educator, researcher and advocate for compassionate health care with decades of nursing experience, Dr. Rushton's work focuses on clinical ethics, palliative and end-of-life care, particularly for children, as well as integrated organizational change and ethical leadership. She has led numerous initiatives to cultivate contemplative practices that foster awareness, inquiry and resilience in complex health care settings and to address the detrimental effects of moral distress on clinicians, patients and families. She designed, implemented and evaluated the Mindful Ethical Practice & Resilience Academy (MEPRA) for nurses. She has published hundreds of articles and book chapters on related topics. Since 2001, she has served as a teacher and collaborator in Upaya's Being With Dying Professional Training program and as core faculty in G.R.A.C.E. Along with Roshi Joan Halifax and Al Kaszniak, she has collaborated in the development of a framework and strategies for addressing moral distress and understanding the process of moral discernment. She has received fellowships from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Executive Nurse Fellow), Mind and Life Institute and Kornfeld Foundation. Currently her research focuses on the cultivation of moral resilience in response to adversity created by ethical conflicts and designing a culture that fosters ethical practice. Her book, "Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare" is published by Oxford University Press.

Elena is a Senior Lecture (Associate Professor) in Psychology at Brunel University London, which she joined in June 2019. Prior to that she was a lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London (KCL), where she remains a Visiting Researcher. Her research focuses on the effects of long-term mindfulness practice using neuroimaging and psychophysiology methods, with the application to the prevention and management of psychopathologies. She has been actively involved with the Mind and Life Institute since 2011 and Mind and Life Europe since 2013. In 2017, she was elected a Mind & Life Research Fellow for her contribution to contemplative science. Elena has a keen interest in the philosophy of mind and ontological issues in cognitive neuroscience. She has also been engaging with the issues concerning the AI ethics and risk mitigation from the perspective of contemplative neuroscience. Elena has been a practitioner of meditation for over 20 years, with her practice being mainly informed by Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.

Dr. Holly Yang provides hospice and palliative care services in the Scripps Health system in San Diego, California and serves as the Director of Community-Based Palliative Care for Scripps Health. She teaches medical and interdisciplinary trainees in Hospice and Palliative Medicine (HPM), and serves as the Scripps Co-Director for the UCSD/Scripps HPM Fellowship Program. She is also a voluntary Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at University of California, San Diego. Dr. Yang completed her fellowship in HPM at San Diego Hospice and the Institute for Palliative Medicine after her internal medicine residency at University of Minnesota. She received her Master of Science in Health Professions Education from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Professions. She earned her BA and MD degrees through the Honors Program in Medical Education at Northwestern University. Her particular interests include: the intersection and integration of HPM with national and international health care systems, communication skills training, health professions education, and whole-person care for the healthcare provider.

Dr. Wendy Dainin Lau is an Emergency Medicine and Addiction Medicine physician. Originally from Hong Kong, Dr. Lau received a B.S. in computer science from Yale University and worked in the tech industry in the United States and in Europe. After realizing that the tech field did not fulfill her aspiration to serve the most vulnerable, she attended medical school at Cornell University. She completed a residency in Emergency Medicine in Brooklyn, New York, and continued to work in some of the busiest hospitals in New York City. She moved to Santa Fe in 2019 and now lives and works…

Job Titles:

• Writer and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia

Evan Thompson is a writer and professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He works on the nature of the mind, the self, and human experience. His work combines cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Asian philosophical traditions. He is the author of Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 2015); Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2007); and Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (Routledge Press, 1995). He is the co-author, with Francisco J. Varela and Eleanor Rosch, of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991, revised edition 2016). Evan is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Evan received his A.B. from Amherst College in 1983 in Asian Studies and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1990. He was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto from 2005 to 2013, and held a Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Science and the Embodied Mind at York University from 2002 to 2005. In 2014, he was the Numata Invited Visiting Professor at the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also held invited visiting appointments at the Faculty of Philosophy, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen, and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In 2012 he co-directed, with Christian Coseru and Jay Garfield, the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on Investigating Consciousness: Buddhist and Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives, and he was co-director, with Coseru and Garfield, of the 2018 NEH Summer Institute on Self-Knowledge in Eastern and Western Philosophies. Evan is currently serving as the Co-Chair of the Steering Council of the Mind and Life Institute and is a member of the Dialogue and Education Working Circle of the Kalein Centre in Nelson, British Columbia.

Job Titles:

• Research Professor

Ezequiel Di Paolo is a full-time Research Professor working at Ikerbasque, the Basque Science Foundation, in San Sebastián, Spain. He received his MSc from the Instituto Balseiro in Argentina and his DPhil from the University of Sussex. He was Reader in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems at the University of Sussex where he has also been co-director of the Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems MSc programme. He remains a member of the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics (CCNR) and the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science at Sussex (COGS). His interdisciplinary work on the enactive approach to life, mind and society integrates insights from cognitive science, phenomenology, philosophy of mind and computational modelling. His recent research focus is on embodied intersubjectivity and participatory sense-making. His other research interests include embodied cognition, dynamical systems, adaptive behaviour in natural and artificial systems, biological modelling, complex systems, evolutionary robotics, and philosophy of science.

Hanne De Jaegher (DPhil, 2007, University of Sussex) is a philosopher of cognitive science, working to better understand how we think, work, play-basically, live and love-together. She has been developing the theory of intersubjectivity called participatory sense-making. Grounded in enactive cognitive science, dynamical systems theory, and phenomenology, this theory is being applied across academic and practical disciplines, such as neuroscience, psychiatry, architecture, psychology, the social sciences, music, education, various forms of therapy, the arts, and understanding autism. Hanne's interest is not only in scientifically understanding how we participate in social interactions and how this changes us, but also in helping us become better at understanding each other, especially across differences. Her latest project brings this together in the idea of an engaged-even engag ing-epistemology, which understands knowing as based in the ongoing existential tensions of loving. In 2018, Linguistic Bodies: The Continuity Between Life and Language came out, co-authored with Ezequiel Di Paolo and Elena Cuffari (MIT Press). De Jaegher is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind and Society, and 2021-22 Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, University of British Columbia.

Job Titles:

• Sensei / Guiding Teacher

Sensei James Fushin Bristol began sitting zazen in 1993, and met Roshi Joan at Upaya in 1998. He later traveled to Nepal with Roshi, and was ordained a priest by her in the winter of 2018. In 2022 he received Hoshi, followed by Dharma Transmission during the Winter Practice Period in January of 2025. Fushin has a Masters in Social Work and a Masters of Divinity degree from The University of Chicago and a J.D. from the University of New Mexico. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Prajna Mountain Buddhist Order. When he is not sitting…

John Dunne (PhD 1999, Harvard University) holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Humanities at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also holds a co-appointment in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, where he currently serves as department Chair. John Dunne's work focuses on Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice, especially in dialog with Cognitive Science and Psychology. His publications, including Foundations of Dharmakīrti's Philosophy (2004) and Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics: The Mind (2020), appear in venues ranging across the Humanities and the Sciences; they include works on Buddhist philosophy, contemplative practice, and their interpretation within scientific, philosophical, and cultural contexts. John Dunne speaks in both academic and public contexts, and he occasionally teaches for Buddhist communities, most notably Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. His broader engagements include the Mind and Life Institute, where he is a Fellow and former member of the Board of Directors, Mind and Life Europe, where he is an Association Member, and the Ranjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, where he serves in an advisory role.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. did his doctoral work in molecular biology at MIT in the laboratory of the Nobel Laureate, Salvador Luria. He is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (in 1995), and (in 1979) its world-renown Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic. He is the author of 15 books, the most recent of which are Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief (2023), and a Thirtieth Anniversary Edition of Wherever You Go, There You Are 2024). They include the bestsellers Full Catastrophe Living, Wherever You Go, There You Are, and Mindfulness for Beginners. In 2018/2019, he published a series of four volumes updating and expanding the 2005 edition of Coming to Our Senses: Meditation is Not What You Think; Falling Awake; The Healing Power of Mindfulness; and Mindfulness for All. His books are published in over 45 languages. His work has contributed to a growing movement of mindfulness into mainstream institutions such as medicine, psychology, health care, neuroscience, schools, higher education, business, social justice, criminal justice, prisons, the law, technology, government, and professional sports. Over 700 hospitals and medical centers around the world now offer MBSR. Jon lectures and leads mindfulness workshops and retreats around the world and online. In the Spring of 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, he offered 66 consecutive weekdays of 90 minute online guided meditations, talks, and dialogue, the so-called mitigation retreat: see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqkYJfT8gsw. His website is https://www.jonkabat-zinn.com.

Jonathan S. Watts began working at the main office of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) in Bangkok in 1990 shortly after graduating Princeton University in the United States where he was born and raised. Under the tutelage of renowned Thai engaged Buddhist Sulak Sivaraksa and the teachings of one of the earliest articulators of a progressive modern Buddhism, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, he has spent the last thirty years immersed in the international engaged Buddhist movement, writing and editing a collaborative volume by Buddhist scholar-activists Rethinking Karma: The Dharma of Social Justice. (INEB: 2009/2014) Moving to Japan in 1993, he has worked in a variety of Buddhist settings including nineteen years at the research institute of the Jodo denomination, whose teacher Honen was the first of the great Kamakura Buddhist revolutionaries where he published Buddhist Care for the Dying & Bereaved (Wisdom 2012); the last sixteen years at the Kodo Kyodan Buddhist Fellowship, a modern lay denomination emerging from the ancient Tendai denomination from which the Kamakura masters all sprang where he published Lotus in the Nuclear Sea: Fukushima and the Promise of Buddhism in the Nuclear Age (Yokohama: International Buddhist Exchange Center, 2013) and This Precious Life: Buddhist Tsunami Relief and Anti-Nuclear Activism in Post 3/11 Japan (Yokohama: International Buddhist Exchange Center, 2012).; and the last fourteen years the Zenseikyo Foundation and Rinbutsuken Institute for Engaged Buddhism, a non-sectarian foundation formed in the post-war area that is training Buddhist chaplains. He has also taught contemporary Buddhism in Japan and Asia at Keio University since 2008. This year he is published a two volume study This volume on Engaged Buddhism in Japan that documents his own work during this time to support Japanese Buddhists to develop their own Socially Engaged Buddhist movement in connection with similar movements in Asia and the West through the Japan Network of Engaged Buddhists (JNEB).

Troy Fernandez is a 13th generation, native New Mexican whose deep appreciation of his cultural heritage led him to pursue a degree in Spanish Literature from the University of New Mexico. In the years following, he has served in a variety of institutions dedicated to the promotion and preservation of New Mexico's cultural heritage. As Interim and Deputy Director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Troy worked with multi-national groups of Hispanics to promote art, music, dance, history and language from across the Spanish speaking word. As Deputy Secretary of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, Troy was instrumental…

Job Titles:

• Sensei / Guiding Teacher

Sensei Monshin is a guiding teacher at Upaya and an active participant in the local sangha. She is also deeply involved with the stewardship of Upaya's Contemplative Residency Program. Monshin provides guidance and teachings for the mahasangha and residents on the Bodhisattva precepts for those aspiring to receive jukai, and spends many hours giving teachings and leading groups on the precepts, as well as helping to prepare and mail scores of jukai materials. Sensei Monshin graduated from the Upaya Chaplaincy Training Program in March of 2018 and continues to offer spiritual guidance and teachings for the chaplaincy students. She received…

Job Titles:

• Sensei / Director of Upaya and Guiding Teacher

Sensei Noah Kodo Roen began exploring a life dedicated to meditation practice in 2009. He joined Upaya's 2010 Winter Practice Period, and later in the year, attended an intensive retreat at the Prajna Mountain Forest Refuge, following which he spent most of the next four years in solitary retreat there. Kodo received Jukai from Roshi Joan Halifax in 2014, was ordained as a novice priest in 2015, served as Shuso in 2019, received Hoshi in January 2020, and received Dharma Transmission from Roshi Joan on September 22, 2022. Kodo began working as Roshi Joan's jisha (attendant) in 2014 and has…

Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D. is a Buddhist teacher, Founder and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a social activist, author, and in her early years was an anthropologist at Columbia University (1964-68) and University of Miami School of Medicine (1970-72). She is a pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions and medical centers around the world. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University, was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar…

Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara, PhD, is the Abbot of The Village Zendo in downtown Manhattan. A Soto Zen priest and contemporary American Zen Teacher, she integrates traditional meditation and koan practice with social engagement and peacemaking. A Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, she taught for many years at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, centering on new media technologies and social justice. Roshi O'Hara's writing has appeared in Tricycle, Turning Wheel, Shambhala Sun, Buddhadharma and other Buddhist journals, as well as her recently released book, Most Intimate, A Zen Approach to Life's Challenges.