Thought Leaders

For Mindfulness Without Borders

From it's early beginnings, Mindfulness Without Borders engaged leading thought-leaders, researchers and advocates who are passionate about mental health and wellbeing. These individuals and their respective work added depth and texture to the direction and content of the work.

Susan Bauer-Wu - President, Mind & Life Institute

A Ph.D., clinician and RN, Susan is also a mindfulness teacher, researcher and meditation practitioner. Her life work integrates contemplative wisdom and practices to foster well-being.

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Valerie Brown - Founder & Principal Lead Smart Coaching

For 20 years, Valerie led a high-pressure, high-stakes life as a lawyer-lobbyist, representing educational institutions and nonprofits. Now, she focuses on working with diverse leaders and teams to foster trustworthy, compassionate, and authentic connections.

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Mirabai Bush - Senior Fellow & Founding Director The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society

Mirabai Bush teaches contemplative practices and develops programs through the application of contemplative principles and values to organizational life.

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Dr. Richard Davidson - Founder & Director Center for Healthy Minds

Davidson is best known for his groundbreaking work studying emotion and the brain. His research is broadly focused on the neural bases of emotion and emotional style as well as methods to promote human flourishing, including meditation and related contemplative practices.

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Daniel Goleman - Co-Director Consortium for Research on Emotional

Author of the best-selling Emotional Intelligence, as well as many other works in emotional and social intelligence, leadership, and education. He is also a psychologist, former science journalist for the New York Times, and co-director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations.

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Thupten Jinpa - President Compassion Institute

A nonprofit global advocate for compassion education. It offers practical compassion-focused trainings based on the latest psychology, neurology, and contemplative science. Thupten and the founding faculty developed Compassion Cultivation Training(C) (CCT(TM)) at Stanford University in 2009. CCT is offered to the general public.

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Jon Kabat-Zinn - Founder Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR)

A Ph.D., John is internationally known for his work as a scientist, writer, and meditation teacher engaged in bringing mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine, health care and society. He is a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded its world-renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic (in 1979), and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society (in 1995).

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Susan Kaiser Greenland - Founder Inner Kids Collaborative

Susan is an internationally recognized leader in teaching mindfulness and meditation to children, teens and parents. She played a foundational role in making mindfulness practices developmentally appropriate for young people and helped pioneer activity-based mindfulness with her first book The Mindful Child.

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Daniel J. Siegel - Executive Director Mindsight Institute

Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., is an internationally acclaimed author, award-winning educator, and child psychiatrist. He received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry.

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Diana Winston - Director of Mindfulness Education UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center

Called by the Los Angeles Times “one of the nation’s best-known teachers of mindfulness,” Diana has taught mindfulness since 1999 in a variety of settings including hospitals, universities, corporations, nonprofits, and schools in the US and Asia. She is author of The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness.

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