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.
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

Biography

Postdoctoral Researcher

Winson Yang, Ph.D.
Winson Yang, Ph.D.

Texas Tech University

Program Manager

Ruby Potash
Ruby Potash

Northeastern University

Program Development

Logan Sullivan, C.A.G.S.
Logan Sullivan, C.A.G.S.

University of Barcelona

Brian Toomey
Brian Toomey

University of Rhode Island

Graduate Students

Caitlin Baten
Caitlin Baten

California State University Fresno

Kamlesh Chalise
Kamlesh Chalise

Goethe University Frankfurt

Umay Demir, M.Sc.
Umay Demir, M.Sc.

Utrecht University

Sebastian Ehmann, M.Sc. M.Sc.
Sebastian Ehmann, M.Sc. M.Sc.

University of Arizona

Hoki Fung, M.Comp. M.Res.
Hoki Fung, M.Comp. M.Res.

University of California, Los Angeles

Saampras Ganesan, M.Eng.
Saampras Ganesan, M.Eng.

University of Melbourne

Jes Heppler
Jes Heppler

University of California, Berkeley

Rosalind McAlpine, M.Res.
Rosalind McAlpine, M.Res.

University College London

Lina Mograby
Lina Mograby

Charité University Medicine Berlin

Idil Sezer, M.Sc.
Idil Sezer, M.Sc.

Sorbonne University

Peter M. Skov-Anderson, M.Sc.
Peter M. Skov-Anderson, M.Sc.

University of Copenhagen

Hagar Tal
Hagar Tal

Maastricht University

Research Assistants

Isidora Beslic
Isidora Beslic
Jasmine Ben-Joseph
Jasmine Ben-Joseph
Thomas Cahaly
Thomas Cahaly
Jasmine Chen
Jasmine Chen
Parker Conley
Parker Conley
Molly Haggerty
Molly Haggerty
Vanessa Naughton
Vanessa Naughton
Gabriella Roseman
Gabriella Roseman
Alexzander Sansiveri
Alexzander Sansiveri
Joseph Valenti
Joseph Valenti
Mihir Walvekar
Mihir Walvekar

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.
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.
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.
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.
Kilian Abellaneda-Pérez, Ph.D.

University of Barcelona

Guttmann Institute of Barcelona

Andrés Canales-Johnson, Ph.D.
Andrés Canales-Johnson, Ph.D.

University of Cambridge

Catholic University of the Maule

Puneet Kumar, Ph.D.
Puneet Kumar, Ph.D.

University of Oulu

Terje Sparby, Ph.D.
Terje Sparby, Ph.D.

Witten/Herdecke University

Steiner University College

Remko van Lutterveld, Ph.D.
Remko van Lutterveld, Ph.D.

Dutch Ministry of Defense

University Medical Center Utrecht

Isaac Treves, Ph.D.
Isaac Treves, Ph.D.

Columbia University

Karen Vasquez, M.D.
Karen Vasquez, M.D.

University of Utah

Malcolm J. Wright, Ph.D.
Malcolm J. Wright, Ph.D.

Massey University

David Zarka, Ph.D.
David Zarka, Ph.D.

Free University of Brussels

Affiliated Harvard Faculty

Jagpreet Chhatwal, Ph.D.
Jagpreet Chhatwal, Ph.D.

Director, Institute for Technology Assessment, Massachusetts General Hospital

Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School

Maurizio Fava, M.D.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 Mar Estarellas, Ph.D. McGill University Nasrin Faghani, M.S. Shiraz University
Michael A. Ferguson, Ph.D. Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School Pablo Friedlander, Ph.D. El Puente and Fundación de Actividades Biosféricas 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
Akila Kadambi, Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles Eunmi (Jina) Kim, Ph.D. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Morten L. Kringelbach, Ph.D. Oxford and Aarhus Universities
Andrew D. Krystal, M.D. University of California, San Francisco Ruben E. Laukkonen, Ph.D. Southern Cross University Jonathan M. Lieberman, B.S. McMaster University
Michael Lifshitz, Ph.D. McGill University Hesheng Liu, Ph.D. Peking University Jonas Mago, M.S. McGill University
Poorvi K. Mandayam, M.A. University of Nevada, Reno Thomas McConkie, B.A. Harvard Divinity School Patrick McConnell, Ph.D. University of California, San Francisco
Daniel Meling, M.S. University of Zurich and University of Freiburg Christopher H. Miller, Ph.D. California State University, Fresno Tom Murray, Ph.D. University of Massachusetts Amherst
Diego A. Pizzagalli, Ph.D. McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School Shawn Prest, M.S. Monash University Nicco Reggente, Ph.D. Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies
Soham Rej, M.D. McGill University Joseph L. Sanguinetti, Ph.D. University of Arizona Michael R. Sheehy, Ph.D. University of Virginia
Kenneth Shinozuka, B.A. University of Oxford 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 Joshua Wright, B.A. The City College of New York
Andrew Zalesky, Ph.D. University of Melbourne Reza Zomorrodi, Ph.D. University of Toronto
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 Res. Asst. to Controls Software Eng.
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)