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
Northeastern University
Program Development

Logan Sullivan, C.A.G.S.
University of Barcelona

Brian Toomey
University of Rhode Island
Graduate Students

Caitlin Baten
California State University Fresno

Kamlesh Chalise
Goethe University Frankfurt

Umay Demir, M.Sc.
Utrecht University

Sebastian Ehmann, M.Sc. M.Sc.
University of Arizona

Hoki Fung, M.Comp. M.Res.
University of California, Los Angeles

Saampras Ganesan, M.Eng.
University of Melbourne

Jes Heppler
University of California, Berkeley

Rosalind McAlpine, M.Res.
University College London

Lina Mograby
Charité University Medicine Berlin

Idil Sezer, M.Sc.
Sorbonne University

Peter M. Skov-Anderson, M.Sc.
University of Copenhagen

Hagar Tal
Maastricht University
Research Assistants

Isidora Beslic

Jasmine Ben-Joseph

Thomas Cahaly

Jasmine Chen

Parker Conley

Molly Haggerty

Vanessa Naughton

Gabriella Roseman

Alexzander Sansiveri

Joseph Valenti

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.
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

Isaac Treves, Ph.D.
Columbia University

Karen Vasquez, M.D.
University of Utah

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 |
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) |