Clifford Saron

Clifford Saron, PhD, is recipient of the inaugural Templeton Prize Research Grant (2012), awarded in honor of H.H. Dalai Lama. Currently a Research Scientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain and MIND Institute, he has been centrally involved in the Buddhist/Science dialogue since 1990 as a participant in Mind and Life III (Saron & Davidson, 1997). He received his PhD in neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1999. For the past 11 years, he has directed The Shamatha Project, funded in part by JTF, a multidisciplinary longitudinal study investigating the effects of intensive contemplative practice in the Buddhist tradition using qualitative and multiple quantitative measures assessing shifts in worldview, personal goals, attentional capacity, emotion regulation, and biomarkers related to stress and cellular longevity. He summarized this work in a recent Master Lecture at the 2016 International Symposium on Contemplative Studies in San Diego. He has played a leadership role in setting programmatic priorities for the Mind and Life Institute (:MLI”), and has been faculty at the JTF funded MLI summer research Institutes in Garrison, New York and the MLI Europe Summer Research Institute. As chair of the Program Planning Committee for an upcoming Mind and Life Dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Botswana, he is actively involved in the cross-­cultural and transdisciplinary exchange between science, Buddhism and indigenous knowledge systems.