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B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. Alan Wallace, the Santa Barbara Institute’s founder and president, combines an extensive background in contemplative practice with equally rigorous academic and scientific training. From 1971 to 1984, he immersed himself in Tibetan Buddhist studies, first in Dharamsala, India, and then in Switzerland under the tutelage of the eminent scholar Geshe Rabten. He then received a B.A. in physics and the philosophy of science at Amherst College, followed by a Ph.D. in religious studies at Stanford University. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Wallace taught in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where his classes focused on Tibetan Buddhist studies and the interface between science and religion. He is the author of many books, including The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Conscousness, Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground, and Buddhism with an Attitude: The Tibetan Seven-Point Mind-Training, as well as numerous scholarly articles. (see full biography or Alan Wallace's Teaching and Lecture Itinerary) Santa Barbara Institute Advisory Board Ven. Ajahn Amaro Co-abbot of Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in northern California, Ajahn Amaro received a B.Sc. with Honours in psychology and physiology from London University. In 1977 he took up residence in a forest meditation monastery in the lineage of Ven. Ajahn Chah in Northeast Thailand. He returned to England to join Ven. Ajahn Sumedho at a newly founded forest monastery in Sussex, at which he eventually served as vice-abbot. He began teaching in the US in 1990, and in 1996 helped found Abhayagiri Monastery in Mendocino County, California. The main focus of his life is practicing as a forest monk, and teaching and training others in that same tradition. Since 1988 he has taken part in numerous conferences and seminars, including two in Dharamsala, India, and one in California with the Dalai Lama and a group of Western Buddhist teachers. In 1994 in London he was also involved in a seminar, "The Good Heart,” led by the Dalai Lama, where he gave commentaries on the Christian gospels. He has published four books: Tudong—the Long Road North, Silent Rain, The Pilgrim Kamanita (ed.) and Small Boat, Great Mountain—Theravadan Reflections on the Natural Great Perfection. Another book, The Island—An Anthology of the Buddha's Teachings on Nirvana, is forthcoming. Michel Bitbol, M.D., Ph.D. Born in 1954, Michel Bitbol is presently Directeur de recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, in Paris (France), based at the Centre de Recherche en Epistémologie Appliquée (CREA), Paris. He also teaches the philosophy of modern physics to graduate students at the University Panthéon-Sorbonne. He was educated at several universities in Paris, where he received his M.D. in 1980, his Ph.D. in physics in 1985, and his Habilitation in philosophy in 1997. He worked as a research scientist in biophysics from 1978 to 1990. From 1990 onwards, Prof. Bitbol turned to the philosophy of physics. He edited texts by Erwin Schroedinger, and published a book entitled Schroedinger's Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics in 1996. He also published two books in French on quantum mechanics and realism in science in 1996 and 1998. More recently, he has focused on the relations between the philosophy of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind, working in close collaboration with Francisco Varela. He published a book on that topic in 2000 and several subsequent papers. He received an award from the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1997 for his work in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. He is presently learning Sanskrit in order to get better understanding of basic texts by Nagarjuna and Candrakirti for a philosophical project on the concept of relation in physics and the theory of knowledge. Jonathan Cohen, Ph.D. Jonathan Cohen is Professor of Psychology, Director of the Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior and Director of the Program in Neuroscience at Princeton University. He is also Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He received a B.A. from Yale University, an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. He has received the NIMH Training Award in Psychiatry; the Annual Resident Research Award, Northern California Psychiatric Society; the Miller Foundation Prize for Research in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; the NIMH Physician Scientist Award; the NIMH First Award; the Joseph Zubin Memorial Fund Award for Research in Psychopathology; and the Kempf Fund Award. Rev. Anthony Freeman Anthony Freeman has degrees in chemistry and theology from Oxford University. He was ordained by the Church of England in 1972 and for twenty years held a variety of pastoral and teaching posts. Following the publication of his controversial book, God In Us: A Case for Christian Humanism (1993), he was dismissed from his parish and his position as ministerial training officer in the diocese of Chichester in England. He remains in the priesthood and has been managing editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies since its launch in 1994. He writes and lectures on matters related to religion and consciousness research; his most recent book is Consciousness: A Guide to the Debates (2003). Gehlek Rinpoche Born in Lhasa,Tibet, Kyabje Gehlek Rinpoche was recognized as an incarnate lama at the age of four. Carefully tutored by Tibet’s greatest living masters, he received specialized, individual teaching at Drepung Monastery, the nation’s largest monastery. In 1959, Gehlek Rinpoche was among those forced into exile in India, fleeing the Communist Chinese who had occupied Tibet since 1951. Subsequently, Ri npoche was a member of a group of sixteen monks chosen to continue studies with the great masters who had escaped Tibet, including the Dalai Lama’s personal tutors. At the age of twenty-five, Rinpoche gave up monastic life. In the mid-70’s, he was encouraged by the Dalai Lama’s tutors, to begin teaching in English. Since that time he has gained a large following throughout the world. Coming to the U.S. in the mid ‘80s, Rinpoche later moved to Ann Arbor, MI and in 1988 founded Jewel Heart, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Tibetan culture and Buddhism. Today, Jewel Heart has chapters throughout the U.S. and in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Netherlands. A member of the last generation of lamas to be born and fully educated in Tibet, Gehlek Rinpoche is particularly distinguished for his understanding of contemporary society and skill as a teacher of Buddhism in the West. He is now an American citizen. Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D. Joan Halifax Roshi is a Buddhist teacher, medical anthropologist, social activist, and author. She holds a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology and has been on the faculty of Columbia University, University of Miami School of Medicine, and the New School for Soci al Research in New York.&n bsp; She has taught at many educational institutions in the United States, including Harvard University, University of Connecticut Medical School, and the University of Virginia Medical School. She was an Honorary Research Fellow at Harvard University in Medical Ethnobotany and one of the first NEA Fellows in Visual Anthropology. She worked for a year at the Museum of Man in Paris with the late ethnocinematographer Jean Rouch, and was also a researcher at the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University and the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. She has done anthropological research in the Americas and Africa, is a pioneer in the area of compassionate care of the dying, and has done seminal work in bringing meditation into the prison system. She founded the Ojai Foundation, the Upaya Zen Center, the Project on Being with Dying, the Upaya Prison Project, and is a co-founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order. Piet Hut, Ph.D. Piet Hut is Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, and head of its Program in Interdisciplinary Studies. His main area of research is astrophysics, particularly stellar dynamics. He has also been involved in collaborations with colleagues i n many other fields, from geology and paleontology to artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology and philosophy. His book The Gravitational Million Body Problem was co-authored with Douglas Heggie. He has also edited four conference proceedings, and is author or co-author of more than 150 scientific publications. He is a founding member of various initiatives including the Kira Institute for science and other ways of knowing, the B612 Foundation for protecting the Earth from asteroid impacts, and the Modest group for modeling dense stellar systems. George R. Mangun, Ph.D. Since 1996, Dr. Mangun has served as a senior editor for the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (MIT Press), and in 2002 was appointed editor of Cognitive Brain Research (Elsevier). In 1998 he co-authored Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind, the first textbook dedicated to the cognitive neurosciences. He was the founding Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Neurobiology at Duke University from 1998-2002. He is currently the founding Director of the Center for Mind and Brain, and Professor or Neurology and Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Prof. David E. Meyer, Ph.D. Prof. David E. Meyer is a faculty member of the Cognition and Perception Program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A mathematical psychologist and cognitive scientist, he received his Ph.D. from Michigan and worked for almost a decade as a member of the technical staff in the Human Information Processing Research Department at the Bell Telephone Laboratories before returning to academia. His teaching and research -- sponsored by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, and Office of Naval Research -- have dealt with fundamental aspects of human perception, attention, learning, memory, language, movement production, multitasking, executive mental control, human-computer interaction, personality and cognitive style, cognitive aging, cognitive neuroscience, mathematical models, and unified computational theories. Numerous reports of this research have appeared in books and journals such as Science, Psychological Review, Cognitive Psychology, Memory & Cognition, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Journal of Memory and Language, and volumes of the Attention and Performance symposium series. For his diverse scientific contributions, the American Psychological Association has honored Prof. Meyer with its Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. He has also been elected as a Fellow in the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the American Psychological Society, and the American Association for The Advancement of Science. His professional activities have included extensive service on journal editorial boards, government review panels, and international administrative committees. In addition, Prof. Meyer has strong interests in human consciousness, contemplative practices, Buddhist psychology, and other Eastern spiritual traditions. He currently serves on the scientific research planning committee of the Mind and Life Institute. Phillip R. Shaver, Ph.D. Phillip R. Shaver, a social and personality psychologist, received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1970 and is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. He has also served on the faculties of Columbia University, New York University, University of Denver, and SUNY Buffalo. He is associate editor of Attachment and Human Development, a member of the editorial boards of Personal Relationships, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and New Review of Social Psychology, and a former member of grant review panels for NIH and NSF. He has received numerous research grants and published several books, including Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes and Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applicatio ns, as well as more than 150 scholarly journal articles and book chapters. Prof. Shaver’s current research focuses on emotions, close relationships, and personal development, especially from the perspective of attachment theory. In recent years he has been collaborating with Professor Mario Mikulincer of Bar-Ilan University in Israel on questionnaire, observational, and experimental studies of attachment security, compassion, and altruism, focusing especially on the ways in which experimentally increased attachment security fosters compassion and virtuous behavior, such as helping others in need and forgiving people who have been hurtful. He has made notable contributions to the scientific literatures on human emotions, close relationships, and the psychology of religion. In 2002, he received a Distinguished Career Award from the International Association for Relationship Research. Prof. Jonathan Shear, Ph.D. Jonathan Shear received a BA in Philosophy and Mathematics summa cum laude from Brandeis University, and was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his P h.D. While a Fulbright Schol ar in Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s, he became interested in Eastern accounts of aspects of mind not ordinarily referred to by Western philosophers and psychologists. This led to examination of whether Eastern experiential procedures could provide an expanded empirical base for our Western theories of mind, knowledge and values, and to the direct practice of a number of Eastern procedures. Prof. Shear was a Founding Faculty of Maharishi International University, as well as Chair of its Philosophy Department for ten years. He was also the Founding Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary Journal of Consciousness Studies, where he continues to serve as an Associate Editor. He has published in a wide variety of journals, including International Philosophical Quarterly, Journal of Clinical Psychology, Journal of the American Academy of Religion and Darshana International. He is author of The Inner Dimension: Philosophy and the Experience of Consciousness, editor of Explaining Consciousness: The Hard Problem, and coeditor of The View from Within: First-Person Approaches to the Study of Consciousness and Models of the Self. He is currently an Affiliated Associate Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is also the author of The Experience of Meditation: Experts Introduce the Major Traditions (Omega Books, Paragon House, 2007). Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is one of only a few masters of the Bön Dzogchen tradition presently living in the West. An accomplished scholar in the Bön Buddhist textual traditions of philosophy, exegesis, and debate, Tenzin Rinpoche completed a rigorous 11-year course of traditional studies at the Bönpo Monastic Center (Menri Monastery) in India, where he received his Gershe or doctoral degree. In 1992, Tenzin Rinpoche founded Ligmincha Institute in order to preserve and introduce the religious teachings and arts of the ancient Tibetan Bön Buddhist tradition to the West. Fluent in English, Rinpoche is known for his clear, lively, and insightful teaching style and his ability to make Tibetan practices easily accessible to the Western student. He is a highly respected and beloved teacher to students throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe. In addition to Ligmincha Institute and its affiliates in the United States, R inpoche has established centers in Mexico, Poland, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Russia. He is the author of Wonders of the Natural Mind, in which he presents the view and practice of the Bön Dzogchen teachings, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, and Healing with Form, Energy, and Light: The Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra, and Dzogchen. Evan Thompson, Ph.D. Evan Thompson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at York University, where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Science and the Embodied Mind. He received his B.A. from Amherst College in Asian Studies, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. He has published numerous articles in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. His books include The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch); Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception; Between Ourselves: Second Person Issues in the Study of Consciousness; and Vision and Mind: Selected Readings in the Philosophy of Perception (with Alva Noë). He is currently finishing a book titled Radical Embodiment: The Lived Body in Biology, Cognitive Science, and Human Experience. His current research interests are intersubjectivity and the phenomenology and neurodynamics of consciousness. He has a long-standing interest in contemplative practice and contemplative approaches to understanding the mind. Arthur Zajonc, Ph.D. Arthur Zajonc is professor of physics at Amherst College, where he has taught since 1978. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan. He has been visiting professor and research scientist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, and the universities of Rochester and Hannover. He has also been Fulbright professor at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, he researched electron-atoms collision physics and radiative transfer in dense vapors. His research has included studies in parity violation in atoms, the experimental foundations of quantum physics, and the relationship between sciences and the humanities. He has also written extensively on Goethe&rsquo ;s science. He is author of the book Catching the Light, co-author of The Quantum Challenge, and co-editor of Goethe’s Way of Science. In 1997 he served as scientific coordinator for the Mind and Life dialogue with H.H. the Dalai Lama on “The New Physics and Cosmology,” the proceedings of which have appeared under the title The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama. He again organized the 2002 dialogue with the Dalai Lama, “The Nature of Matter, the Nature of Life,” and acted as moderator at MIT for the “Investigating the Mind” dialogue in 2003. He has also been General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America (1994-2002), president of the Lindisfarne Association, and a senior program director at the Fetzer Institute. Katherine Morrow, Ph.D. Katherine Morrow is the founder, president and CEO of the Mandala Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of meditation. Born and educated in Canada, she worked as a filmmaker, TV executive producer and artist for over 20 years. In 2006, she received her Ph.D. in mythological studies from the Pacifica Graduate Institute. In 2007, Dr. Morrow was a participant in the Shamatha Project. She currently lives in Santa Barbara and is devoting her time to help establish SBICS’s Contemplative Observatory. |
I am happy to learn that Alan Wallace proposes to set up an institute that will focus on contemplative research and education. Alan is well qualified by his many years of study and practice of Buddha Dharma under traditional circumstances and his rigorous training in the Western academic arena to guide such an establishment… I am happy to lend my support to the institute and wish Alan Wallace every success. His Holiness the Dalai Lama |
© 2005 Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies |