Archives: Authors
Aurelia Santos
Aurelia Santos is an award-winning photographer, nonprofit communications specialist, and dance organizer in Oakland. Passionate about the immigrant experience, social justice, and sex positivity, Aurelia uses storytelling and dancing for her brand of social activism.
Aakash Chowkase
Aakash Chowkase, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Greater Good Science Center, where he is conducting research on bridging differences. Specifically, he is developing a tool to measure social cohesion and then using it to evaluate GGSC’s bridging differences practices.
Maryam Abdullah
Maryam Abdullah, Ph.D., is the Parenting Program Director of the Greater Good Science Center. She is a developmental psychologist with expertise in parent-child relationships and children’s development of prosocial behaviors.
Bradley Donaldson
Formerly a monk, Bradley Donaldson teaches meditation. He’s focused on helping queer and BIPOC folks heal and cultivate connection.
Lama Hun Lye
Lama Hun Lye grew up in Malaysia and has a Ph.D in Religious Studies from University of Virginia. He is a lama in the Drikung Kagyu since being appointed a Dorjé Lopön (lit. “vajra-master”) by H.H. Drikung Kyabgön Chetsang Rinpoché in 2013. He is founder of Urban Dharma NC and Drikung Dharmakirti International Sangha.
Roberval Oliveira
Roberval Oliveira is a mindfulness meditation teacher and the author of <em>Silence: Journals from a Meditation Retreat</em>.
Jan Westerhoff
Jan Westerhoff is Professor of Buddhist Philosophy at the University of Oxford. His research concentrates on Buddhist philosophy (primarily on Madhyamaka) and on contemporary analytic philosophy (mainly on metaphysics). His publications include <em>Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka</em> and <em>The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy</em>.
David Germano
David Germano, PhD, is Executive Director of the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia, where he has taught and researched Tibetan and Buddhist Studies since 1992. A co-leader of the Student Flourishing Initiative, a partnership of UVA, the University of Wisconsin, and Penn State University, he is also lead organizer of an international research community of scholars and translators specializing in the Great Perfection tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
Adrienne Chang
Adrienne Chang is a student in the tradition of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She has co-led Buddhist study and meditation retreats in Europe, North America, and online. She is also a participant in the Milinda Program, a ten-year, multi-sangha, shedra-style teacher training program for Western dharma instructors under the vision and guidance of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter (1933-2023) was a jazz brass player and composer, and practiced Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International.
Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock is a jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. He practices Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International. His memoir, Possibilities, was released in 2015.
Anne Seidlitz
Anne Seidlitz has been a writer in documentary film for almost two decades. Her work has appeared on PBS's <i>American Masters, Great Performances,</i> and <i>American Experience </i>series, among others, as well as screened theatrically. Her most recent writing credit is <i>Becoming Frederick Douglass (</i>now streaming on PBS), produced by Firelight Media and Maryland Public Television. Anne has also worked extensively with independent filmmakers, and her particular area of focus has been on Black American social, political, and cultural history. Anne began practicing Buddhism in the early 1980s while still in college, and has been a lead writer on the Chogyam Trungpa Digital Library project since 2020. She is currently writing a book about the jazz pianist Hampton Hawes.
John Mifsud
John Mifsud was born on the Island of Malta and identifies as Arab-American. He has practiced Insight Meditation since 2001 and graduated from the Community Dharma Leaders Training Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he served on the Board of Directors for seven years. John has extensive retreat experience and has practiced throughout Asia. He is the founding member of the Deep Refuge Sangha for Alphabet Brothers of Color in Oakland. He has taught internationally with a special interest in delivering mindfulness tools to marginalized communities.
Jonathan C. Gold
Jonathan C. Gold is Professor of Religion and Director of the Center for Culture, Society and Religion at Princeton University. His research focuses on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and he is the author of Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy (2015) and The Dharma’s Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet (2007), and co-editor of Readings of Śāntideva’s Guide to Bodhisattva Practice (2019). His research focuses on Buddhist approaches to language, learning, self-cultivation and ethics (which are connected), and seeks to show how Buddhism is relevant to modern conversations. In his current work, he is trying to craft Buddhist tools for contemporary society and politics.
C. Pierce Salguero
Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and cross-cultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. He is the author of Buddhish: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Ideas for the Curious and Skeptical and A Global History of Buddhism & Medicine, both published in 2022.
Seth Zuihō Segall
Seth Zuihō Segall, Ph.D. is a Zen Buddhist priest and clinical psychologist who teaches at Pamsula Zen of Westchester and the New York Insight Meditation Center, is a contributing editor for <em>Tricycle: The Buddhist Review</em>, and the science writer for the Mindfulness Research Monthly. Dr. Segall’s publications include <em>The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism</em> (2023), <em>Buddhism and Human Flourishing</em> (2020), <em>Living Zen: A Practical Guide of a Balanced Existence</em> (2020), <em>Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings</em> (2003) and recent chapters in <em>The Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation</em> (2022), and the <em>Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality</em> (2022). His blog, <a href="https://www.existentialbuddhist.com/2023/01/youre-going-to-carry-that-weight/">The Existential Buddhist</a>, contains commentary on Buddhist philosophy, ethics, history, art, meditation, and social engagement
Richard Kahn
Richard Kahn, PhD, MS, RD, is a Dharma Teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen and teaches meditation in two synagogues in NYC. He writes about meditation and dairy foods. He has a nutrition practice specializing in infants and young children.
Sister Peace
Sister Peace is a nun in the Plum Village tradition. Recently, her service and practice have been focused on the children jailed in the Shelby County Juvenile Detention Center in Memphis.
Kathy Yep
Kathy Yep is a practitioner in the Plum Village tradition and a qi gong teacher/student in the Wild Goose tradition of Yan Mei Jun lineage. She is also longtime resident of Monterey Park and a tenured full professor of Asian American Studies at Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges. For more information: <a href="http://www.kathyyep.com">www.kathyyep.com</a>
Ravi Chandra
Ravi Chandra is a blogger for Psychology Today. His documentary The Bandaged Place: From AIDS to Covid and Racial Justice won Best Film at the 2021 Cannes Independent Film Festival.