Eve Ekman, Ph.D., MSW, is a GGSC Senior Fellow. An experienced speaker, researcher, and group facilitator, she brings a unique background ideally suited to training individuals and organizations in the science of happiness, resilience, compassion, mindfulness, and emotional awareness. Eve creates dynamic trainings adapted specifically for the needs of her participants, drawing upon her deep scientific knowledge, direct clinical work, and experiences in a range of institutional and organizational settings, particularly within the health care field. She worked for years as a social worker in health care, criminal justice, and social welfare systems, which inspired her to earn her master’s and Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and complete her postdoctoral training at UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. Her research has focused on helping professional care providers prevent burnout by giving them easier access to practices of attention, insight, and resilience. Building on her research, she developed trainings to address burnout in national and international organizations and has delivered keynotes and workshops for a wide range of companies, including Airbnb, Salesforce, and Kaiser Permanente. Eve is a second-generation emotion researcher who has had meaningful collaborations with her father, renowned emotion researcher Dr. Paul Ekman, including on The Atlas of Emotions, an online visual tool commissioned by the Dalai Lama to teach emotional awareness, and Cultivating Emotional Balance, an intensive, evidence-based training for compassion and mindfulness. Eve’s writing on empathy, burnout, and compassion has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and books, including Oxford handbooks of positive psychology and compassion science. She is a regular practitioner of meditation, yoga, and cold water surfing, and brings her enthusiasm for living a rich emotional life into her teaching.

https://eveekman.com/

Andrew Chapman is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the co-director and guiding teacher at Wild Heart Meditation Center, a non-profit Buddhist community center located in Nashville, TN.  He has a psychotherapy practice and also offers mentorship, group facilitation, education, and training for individuals, groups and organizations interested in mindfulness meditation.

Andrew is licensed by the State of Tennessee to practice psychotherapy (LCSW 7188). He has also been authorized to facilitate mindfulness and empowered as a Buddhist Teacher through Spirit Rock Meditation Center after completing the Community Dharma Leader Training Program in the Spring of 2017. Andrew has spent over 6 months of his life on intensive silent meditation retreat, with a steadfast commitment to his personal meditation practice. He has been a guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University, Belmont University, Nashville Psychotherapy Institute, University of Tennessee, and Meharry Medical College, speaking to students, faculty, as well as mental health professionals. In addition to his psychotherapy practice, Andrew offers mindfulness-based therapeutic groups and workshops at several mental health and addictions treatment centers in the greater Nashville area.

Bill Duane is the principal at Bill Duane and Associates, a consulting firm focused on innovation. He helps organizations and individuals execute well in ambiguity and rapid change through innovation mindset, managing complexity and resilience. He works with leading companies including tech, pharma and media.

He teaches innovation and AI workshops at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design and is the Director of Strategy and Implementation at the Center for the Study of Apparent Selves, working on applied AI ethics, funded by a two-year Templeton Foundation grant. He holds a Research Fellowship at Kathmandu University as part of this effort.

He was an engineering executive at Google for nine years, leading the production engineering teams for websearch infrastructure and then Google Workspace (gmail, docs, calendar, etc.) responsible for scaling these services worldwide during hypergrowth. After becoming curious about burnout, performance and culture, he started a second career at Google, establishing the role of Superintendent of Wellbeing and creating successful programs to explore the intersection of performance and human flourishing for the following five years.

He is on the advisory board of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a Fellowship Advisor to the Just Economy Institute and advisor to several for-profit and nonprofit startups.

https://apparentselves.org/

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 Why I Am Not a Buddhist (Yale University Press, 2020); 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.

https://evanthompson.me/

I’m a Licensed Psychologist (PSY25229) in the the state of California. Most of my work has involved working with high-risk and marginalized youth in the juvenile justice system, foster care system, and those suffering from addiction issues. I’ve previously worked at the Chemical Dependency program at Kaiser Permanente with teens and their families, in a number of juvenile halls conducting psychotherapy, psychological evaluations, and  researching the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions with incarcerated and underserved adolescent populations. I am the  author of multiple scholarly journal articles and three books, I travel the country speaking at conferences and conducting professional trainings, and I am the founder and president of the Center for Adolescent Studies. 

I am passionate about training professionals from multiple disciplines in creating authentic, healing relationships with adolescents that contribute to positive outcomes. Most of my speaking lies at the intersection of building authentic relationships, trauma-informed care, and teaching mindfulness to youth. 

I am a formerly incarcerated youth myself and was privileged to change my life from a path of drugs, violence, crime, and self-destruction to that of healing and transformation. My mission is to help young people become aware of the power of self-awareness and transformation, and train professionals with similar interests. Learn more about my philosophy and approach in his books: A Mindfulness-Based Approach to Working with High-Risk Adolescents (Routledge, 2013), Mindfulness-Based Substance Abuse Treatment for Adolescents: A 12-Session Curriculum (Routledge, 2015), and Trauma-Informed Mindfulness With Teens: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals (Norton, forthcoming).

https://samhimelstein.com/

https://centerforadolescentstudies.com/

Brent Purple Oliver is a mindfulness and meditation coach who specializes in customizing methods based on each client’s goals, needs, and personalities. He’s known for his brash, straightforward approach, sense of humor, and relentless practicality. 

Purple has credentials from Unified Mindfulness, the Engaged Mindfulness Institute, and David Treleaven’s trauma-sensitive mindfulness program. He’s been teaching groups and individuals for 15 years, helping hundreds of people find ways to become more awake, authentic, and awesome. His view and practices are devoutly life-affirming and designed to uncover our natural confidence and playfulness. 

Qualifications are important, but clients are equally drawn to Purple because they resonate with his colorful attitude and appreciate his freaky style. This work requires connection and compatibility. Meditation isn’t a generic practice and teachers aren’t interchangeable. 

Purple is one of a kind. If you’d like to learn more about him and what he does, visit his website at BrentPurpleOliver.com. 

Mirabai Bush is a co-founder of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and served as Executive Director until 2008. Under her direction, The Center developed its programs in education, law, business, environment, the military, and activism and its network of thousands of people integrating contemplative practice and perspective into their lives and work.

Mirabai holds a unique background of organizational management, teaching, and spiritual practice. She co-developed the curriculum for Search Inside Yourself for Google, the first program in mindfulness-based emotional intelligence; it has been attended by thousands of Google employees. A founding board member of the Seva Foundation, an international public health organization, she directed the Seva Guatemala Project, which supports sustainable agriculture and integrated community development. Also at Seva, she co-developed Sustaining Compassion, Sustaining the Earth, a series of retreats and events for grassroots environmental activists on the interconnection of spirit and action. She is co-author with Ram Dass of Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying and Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service, published by Random House; co-author with Daniel Barbezat of Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning; and editor of Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live. She is currently working on a memoir.

Mirabai formerly taught writing and English literature at SUNY Buffalo, and directed an innovative program there for diversifying the university and preparing students of color for academic challenges. She also taught in the Smith College School of Social Work and leads an orientation class in mindfulness for first-year Amherst College students. Her spiritual studies include meditation in Bodh Gaya, India, with Shri S.N. Goenka and Anagarika Munindra; bhakti yoga with Hindu teacher Neemkaroli Baba; and studies with Tibetan lamas Kalu Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kyabje Gehlek Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and others. She was also a student of aikido master Kanai Sensei.

https://mirabaibush.com/

Joseph Goldstein is one of the first American vipassana teachers, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg. He is a contemporary author of numerous popular books on Buddhism, a resident guiding teacher at IMS, and a leader of retreats worldwide on insight (vipassana) and lovingkindness (metta) meditation. While the majority of Goldstein's publications introduce Westerners to primarily Theravada concepts, practices and values, his 2002 work, One Dharma, explored the creation of an integrated framework for the Theravada, Tibetan and Zen traditions. 

Joseph first became interested in Buddhism as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand in 1965. Since 1967 he has studied and practiced different forms of Buddhist meditation under eminent teachers from India, Burma and Tibet. He is the author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, A Heart Full of Peace, One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism, Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom, The Experience of Insight, and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom and Insight Meditation: A Correspondence Course.

Teen mental health education advocate, Adam Avin, created the Wuf Shanti Children’s Wellness Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization, to teach mindfulness and social emotional learning, so children 3-17 years-old can live in health and wellness & peace and positivity.

Adam also founded the Kids’ Association for Mindfulness in Education, and the international online Mindful Kids Peace Summit.

Adam Avin is a certified in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction for Teens, Kidding Around Yoga, and the Emotion Code, and is the youngest meditation instructor at Yoga International and Inner Explorer.

He also has been in publications such as Mindful Magazine, Psychology Today, Tiger Woods Foundation Magazine, goop Magazine, CASEL newsletter, LA Yoga, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Think Positive Live Happy, and many others.

Adam gave a TEDxYouth@KC Talk about getting mindful and social emotional learning programs into our education system, why mental health education is so important to stopping the violence, and using our voice to make a positive difference in the world.

Adam also served as a part of the inaugural fellowship cohort for the Kevin Love Fund, a non-profit organization that focuses on inspiring people to live their healthiest lives and is working to get mental health curriculum into schools.

Adam is a Posse Scholar for the Syracuse University Newhouse School Class of 2026. He is majoring in Broadcast and Digital Journalism and minoring in both Sports Management and Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies. His book, Stress Less: Mindfulness for Teens will be released in September of 2023 by Trigger Publishing.

https://www.adamavin.com/

https://seculardharmafoundation.com/

The mission of the Secular Dharma Foundation (501c) is to foster the advancement of emotional and psychological well-being through the education and integration of mindfulness, psychology, nature-based programming, and various therapeutic modalities. We provide educational tools and resources, mindfulness and emotional skills training through online programs, podcasts, trainings, and retreats.

A secular perspective is one that is concerned with the world in which we live, here and now. Secularity has no allegiance to any religious, spiritual, or political point of view. The primary emphasis is the study and promotion of human welfare and human flourishing through material means, psychological and emotional health and serving the greater good as its primary duty and ultimate concern.

The study, practice, and integration of dharma is the process of understanding how things come to be, and how to develop a constructive relationship with what happens. We acknowledge that any person can cultivate the contemplative tools needed to develop unshakable inner resources for well-being, health, and happiness. Our theory of dharma is drawn from the early Buddhist tradition as found within the teachings of the Pali canon. We utilize a secular approach to Buddhist texts by seeking to understand the social, historical, psychological, and ethical implications of these ideas rather than literal interpretations or strict adherence to any particular set of views, traditions or dogmas. Openness, tolerance, and continued dialog are our core principles.