People
The Meditation Research Program is led by Dr. Matthew D. Sacchet, Ph.D. and includes our core team in the Greater Boston metropolitan region of New England in the United States of America. The program also has team members around the world including in Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom.
In addition, we maintain a rich collaborative network with a global team of over 100 researchers. Our highly talented and multidisciplinary team is dedicated to furthering the understanding and practice of advanced meditation through foundational scientific research and applied education and training.
We regularly supervise undergraduate and graduate students, and welcome new and exciting collaborations with individuals at different career stages from the most junior to the most senior. Please be in touch if you think you might be a good fit to work with us.
Director
Matthew D. Sacchet, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Director, Meditation Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital
Faculty, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Mass General Hospital
Faculty, Spirituality and Mental Health Program, McLean Hospital
Faculty, Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, Harvard University
Faculty, Harvard Brain Science Initiative, Harvard University
Postdoctoral Researcher
Winson Yang, Ph.D.
Texas Tech University
Program Manager
Ruby Potash, B.S.
Northeastern University
Program Development
Logan Sullivan, C.A.G.S.
University of Barcelona
Brian Toomey, B.A.
University of Rhode Island
Graduate Students
Caitlin Baten, M.A.
Umay Demir, M.S.
Utrecht University
Sebastian Ehmann, M.Sc.
University of Arizona
Hoki Fung, M.S.
University College London
Saampras Ganesan, M.Eng.
University of Melbourne
Rosalind McAlpine, M.Res.
University College London
Idil Sezer, M.Sc.
Sorbonne University
Hagar Tal, M.Sc.
Maastricht University
Isaac Treves
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Assistants
Batool Abbasi
Isidora Beslic
Jasmine Ben-Joseph
Thomas Cahaly
Parker Conley
Molly Haggerty
Grace Mackin
Vanessa Naughton
Gabriella Roseman
Melissa Streifert
Joseph Valenti
Mihir Walvekar
Jason Zheng
Interested in joining our team as a postdoctoral researcher?
The Meditation Research Program of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General) is recruiting postdoctoral scientists. The successful candidate(s) will be hired with the academic appointment of Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Academic Advisors
Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D.
Founder and Director of the Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin Madison
William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin Madison
Co-Founder and Co-Director, Health-Emotions Research Institute, University of Wisconsin Madison
Founder and Chief Visionary, Healthy Minds Innovations
Adam Gazzaley, M.D./Ph.D.
Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Physiology, University of California San Francisco
Executive Director and Founder, Neuroscape, University of California San Francisco Medical Center
Co-Founder and Chief Science Advisor, Akili Interactive Labs
Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, JAZZ Venture Partners
Michael Pollan, Ph.D.
Writer, journalist, and author, including of the book How to Change your Mind
John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism, University of California Berkeley
Founder, Center for the Science of Psychedelics, University of California Berkeley
Professor of the Practice of Non-fiction and Lewis Chan Lecturer in the Arts, Harvard University
Affiliated Scientists
Kilian Abellaneda-Pérez, Ph.D.
University of Barcelona
Guttmann Institute of Barcelona
Andrés Canales-Johnson, Ph.D.
University of Cambridge
Catholic University of the Maule
Puneet Kumar, Ph.D.
University of Oulu
Terje Sparby, Ph.D.
Witten/Herdecke University
Steiner University College
Remko van Lutterveld, Ph.D.
Dutch Ministry of Defense
University Medical Center Utrecht
Karen Vasquez, M.D.
Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Malcolm J. Wright, Ph.D.
Massey University
David Zarka, Ph.D.
Free University of Brussels
Affiliated Harvard Faculty
Jagpreet Chhatwal, Ph.D.
Director, Institute for Technology Assessment, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School
Maurizio Fava, M.D.
Psychiatrist-in-Chief, Massachusetts General Hospital
Executive Director, Massachusetts General Hospital Clinical Trials Network and Institute
Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research, Harvard Medical School
Slater Family Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Gregory L. Fricchione, M.D.
Associate Chief of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital
Director, Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
Founding Director, Chester M. Pierce Division of Global Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital
Mind Body Medicine Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Randy L. Gollub, M.D./Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Associate Director for Translational Research,
Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging, Massachusetts General Hospital
Karestan C. Koenen, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Director, Biology of Trauma Initiative, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Director, Population Mental Health Laboratory and Concentration Epidemiology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Sara W. Lazar, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Director, Lazar Lab for Meditation Research, Massachusetts General Hospital
Joshua L. Roffman, M.D./Ph.D.
Director, Early Brain Development Initiative, Massachusetts General Hospital
Co-Director, Mass General Neuroscience, Massachusetts General Hospital
Co-Director, Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Bruce R. Rosen, M.D./Ph.D.
Director, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital
Vice Chair of Research in Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital
Scientific Director, Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics, Massachusetts General Hospital
Robbins Professor, Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School
Jerold F. Rosenbaum, M.D.
Psychiatrist-in-Chief Emeritus, Massachusetts General Hospital
Director, Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders, Massachusetts General Hospital
Director, Center for Neuroscience of Psychedelics, Massachusetts General Hospital
Stanley Cobb Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital
David H. Rosmarin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Director, Spirituality & Mental Health Program, McLean Hospital
Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D.
Director, Genetics and Aging Research Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital
Vice Chair of Neurology, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital
Co-Director, McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital
Kennedy Professor, Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Collaborators (incomplete)
Selen Atasoy, Ph.D. Oxford University | Laima Baltusis, Ph.D. Stanford University | Marta Bianciardi, Ph.D. Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School |
James H. Bishop, Ph.D. Stanford University School of Medicine | Judson A. Brewer, M.D. Ph.D. Brown University | Josh Cain, Ph.D. Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies |
Bruno A. Cayoun, D.Psych. Mindfulness-integrated CBT Training Institute | Peter K. Y. Chan, M.D. University of British Columbia | Avijit Chowdhury, Ph.D. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai |
Leonardo Christov-Moore, Ph.D. Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies | George Deane, Ph.D. University of Montreal | Eric L. Garland, Ph.D. University of Utah |
Gary H. Glover, Ph.D. Stanford University School of Medicine | Ian H. Gotlib, Ph.D. Stanford University | Roberto Goya-Maldonado, M.D. University of Göttingen |
Andrea D. Grabovac, M.D. University of British Columbia | Nickolas Grabovac Meditation teacher and author | Tiffany C. Ho, Ph.D. University of California, San Francisco |
Akila Kadambi, Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles | Eunmi (Jina) Kim, Ph.D. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology | Morten L. Kringelbach, D.Phil Oxford and Aarhus Universities |
Andrew D. Krystal, M.D. University of California, San Francisco | Ruben E. Laukkonen, Ph.D. Free University Amsterdam | Michael Lifshitz, Ph.D. McGill University |
Hesheng Liu, Ph.D. Medical University of South Carolina | Poorvi K. Mandayam, M.A. University of Nevada, Reno | Christopher H. Miller, Ph.D. California State University, Fresno |
Diego A. Pizzagalli, Ph.D. McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School | Nicco Reggente, Ph.D. Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies | Soham Rej, M.D. McGill University |
Joseph L. Sanguinetti, Ph.D. University of Arizona | Heleen Slagter, Ph.D. Free University Amsterdam | Moria Smoski, Ph.D. Duke University |
Christopher Timmermann, Ph.D. Imperial College London | Nolan R. Williams, M.D. Stanford University School of Medicine | Shinzen Young University of Arizona |
Andrew Zalesky, Ph.D. University of Melbourne | Martin Zhang, M.D. Ph.D. Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School |
ALIUS Research Group | COORDINATE-MDD Consortium Consortium Chair: Cynthia H. Y. Fu, M.D. Ph.D. |
Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium Consortium Director: Daniel Ingram, M.D. | ENIGMA Depression, Bipolar, et cetera Selected Chairs: Lianne Schmaal Ph.D. and Paul Thompson Ph.D. |
Multisite Resting-state fMRI Initiative (PsyMRI) Consortium Director: Martin Walter, M.D. |
Alumni / Prior Mentees (incomplete)
Micah Breiger Research Assistant to M.D. Harvard Medical School | M. Catalina Camacho Research Assistant to Neuroscience Ph.D. Washington University in St. Louis | Sarah E. Chang Research Assistant to Neuroscience Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles |
Carlos G. Correa Research Assistant to Neuroscience Ph.D. Princeton University | Monica E. Ellwood-Lowe Research Assistant to Psychology Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley | Yi Gu Res. Asst. to Elec. Comp. Engineering M.S. University of Washington |
Satish Jaiswal Visiting Scholar to Postdoctoral Researcher University of California, San Diego | Monica Kullar Research Assistant to Neuroscience Ph.D. University of Cambridge | Emily E. Livermore Research Assistant to Psychology Psy.D. PGSP-Stanford Psy.D. Consortium |
Adam R. Pines Research Assistant to Neuroscience Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania | Omar Riaz Research Assistant to Software Engineer Robotics/Controls Boston Dynamics | Anastasia Ryhanych Research Assistant to M.D. University of California, San Diego |
Praveen Suthaharan Summer Student to Neuroscience Ph.D. Yale School of Medicine | Shane Walsh Research Assistant to Engineer MathWorks (MATLAB) |