Keynote Speakers

Griefwork as Contemplative Practice: Reframing Mindfulness through Humanistic Inquiry

Anne Vallely is the founder of the Contemplative Studies and Well-being program, and the new End of Life Studies program, which integrates contemplative practices to support psychological, philosophical, and spiritual reflection on finitude and grief. She is also the co-founder of the MA in Psychedelics and Consciousness Studies. Her research is situated within the broad field of the Anthropology of Religion, with a focus on South Asian religions, particularly Jainism. Her interests span human–non-human boundaries, nature and spirituality, death and mourning, devotional practices and non-ordinary states of consciousness.. Methodologically, she approaches these areas through the lens of phenomenology and the aesthetics of religious experience. Vallely is currently undertaking a new research project exploring the connection between Jain introspective practices and the distinct states of consciousness they aim to cultivate—such as compassion, equanimity, and nondogmatic thinking

The Arc of Life and Death: Courageous, Contemplative Reflection on Family, Foundation, and Future to Foster Harmony and Well-Being

Dr. Cheryl L. Woods Giscombé, PhD, PMHNP-BC is a distinguished professor, psychiatric nurse practitioner, social and health psychologist, a certified health coach, and a certified mindfulness-based relapse prevention teacher. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, the Academy of Behavioral Medicine, and the Mind & Life Institute. Giscombe was named a Leader in the Field by the American Psychological Association, and her community-engaged research on mindfulness, mental health, and wellness for Black women has been consistently funded by the National Institutes of Health and other national foundations and healthcare organizations for the past twenty years.

She teaches art-museum based contemplative practices, with training from the Harvard Macy Institute. She was a design partner for the Harvard Macy Institute Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship, and she is contributor to the Harvard Medical School CME Visual Thinking Strategies for Healthcare course. Dr. Woods Giscombe developed the Superwoman Schema Conceptual Framework, the Giscombe Superwoman Schema Questionnaire, and the HarmonyNurseLeader Program, and she is the author of The Black Woman’s Guide to Coping with Stress: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Skills to Create a Life of Joy and Well-Being (New Harbinger, 2024).

https://drcherylwoodsgiscombe.com 

Towards a Developmental Contemplative Science

Dr. Robert W. Roeser is the Alice Valli Professor of Compassion and Ethics and Professor of Behavioral Social and Health Education Sciences at Emory University. He also serves as the Director of Research for the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-based Ethics at Emory. His training is in education, developmental science, clinical social work and religion; and he is a thought leader in the emerging fields of Contemplative Education and Developmental Contemplative Science.

Dr. Roeser’s research interests include adolescence and early adulthood, schooling from Pre-K to College/University as a central cultural context of students’ academic, social-emotional and identity development; and the role of mindfulness and compassion training for teachers and students.  His recent work has focused on introducing mindfulness and compassion practices in for-credit, college courses for students to help them to (a) manage mental health challenges and (b) pursue their own vision of a life of flourishing.

Can the Arc of Life and Death Culminate in a Single Moment?
Bridging Worlds of Body and Consciousness in Tibetan Tukdam Meditation

Dr. Tawni Tidwell is a biocultural anthropologist and doctor of Tibetan medicine (Kachupa degree), the first non-Asian to have formally completed her Tibetan medical education in a Tibetan institution in Tibetan language alongside Tibetan peers. Dr. Tidwell trained at Men-Tsee-Khang in north India and at Sorig Loling Tibetan Medical College of Qinghai University in eastern Tibet. Her doctoral work combined insights from contemporary neuroscience, Buddhist epistemology, and biocultural anthropology to understand how Tibetan physicians learn to embody diagnostic practices, particularly for cancer and metabolic disorders.

Currently, she serves as Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Healthy Minds of University of Wisconsin-Madison where her work facilitates bridges across the Western scientific tradition and Tibetan medical and contemplative traditions along with their attendant epistemologies and ontologies. She is Principal Investigator for the Field Study of the Physiology of Meditation Practitioners and the Tukdam Meditative State (Tukdam Study) guided by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in collaboration with Tibetan Buddhist monastic and Tibetan medical colleagues in India as well as the Russian Academy of Sciences and India’s National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Science (NIMHANS) with over 65 team members.

Dr. Tidwell is also Principal Investigator for North American Covid-19 Tibetan Medicine Observational Study (NACTMOS) that tracked outcomes for mild- and medium-severity patients with Covid-19 treated exclusively with Tibetan medicine; and for the Mind & Life Institute Varela Grant-funded Study on Examining Individual Differences in Contemplative Practice Response (ExamID-Biome), which assessed variation in meditation outcomes as it relates to gut microbiome profiles and Tibetan medical constitutional characteristics. She maintains a private clinical practice in Madison, Wisconsin.