Michael Lifshitz

Michael is interested in the plasticity of human perception. He is currently wrapping up his PhD in neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, and will soon be joining Tanya M. Luhrmann as a postdoctoral fellow in the anthropology department at Stanford. Michael’s research investigates practices that aim to transform subjective experience—from meditation and hypnosis to placebos and prayer. He works from an interdisciplinary perspective, combining cognitive, neurobiological, and phenomenological approaches to shed light on consciousness and self-regulation. In this spirit, he recently co-edited an academic book entitled “Hypnosis and Meditation: Towards an Integrative Science of Conscious Planes” (Oxford University Press, 2016). Michael’s work is supported by the NSERC, the Bial Foundation, and Mind & Life Institute. Before his doctorate, he completed a master’s in neuroscience and an undergraduate with honors in psychology and minors in philosophy and world religions, all at McGill.