Founders

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times best-selling author. His seven books have been published in 33 languages and include Making Great Relationship, Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Just One Thing, Buddha’s Brain, and Mother Nurture – with over a million copies in English alone. He’s the founder of the Global Compassion Coalition and the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, as well as the co-host of the Being Well podcast – which has been downloaded over 9 million times. His free newsletters have 260,000 subscribers, and his online programs have scholarships available for those with financial needs. He’s lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard. An expert on positive neuroplasticity, his work has been featured on CBS, NPR, the BBC, and other major media. He began meditating in 1974 and has taught in meditation centers worldwide. He and his wife live in northern California and have two adult children. He loves the wilderness and taking a break from emails.

Rick Mendius, M.D., is a neurologist, author, and teacher. He trained at UCLA as an epileptologist under Jerome Engel and as a neurobehaviorist under Frank Benson and Jeff Cummings. He has been on the teaching faculty of UCLA, Oregon Health Sciences University, and Stanford University. His meditation practice began in the 1980s with Shinzen Young in Los Angeles, and continues at Spirit Rock with Jack Kornfield, Phillip Moffitt, Ajahn Amaro, and Ajahn Sumedho.

Rick leads a weekly meditation class at San Quentin Prison, and teaches daylongs at Spirit Rock, Sati Center, and other organizations. He has authored numerous articles for the Wise Brain Bulletin, and he has a particular interest in the long-term effects of meditation on aging, and in longitudinal research on contemplative practice. He played an instrumental role in Buddha’s Brain, and co-authored Meditations to Change Your Brain.

With Dr. Hanson, he co-founded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. Rick’s daughters, Courtney and Taryn, and his son, Ian, are three of his main teachers and companions on the path.

You can contact Rick at jrichardmendius@aol.com

Board of Directors

James Baraz is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and has been teaching insight meditation since 1978. James started Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader program, the Spiritual Friends Network, is teacher-advisor to the Spirit Rock Family program and leads the Heavenly Messenger Training Program which explores awakening through aging, illness and death. He’s been teaching the popular online Awakening Joy course since 2003.

James is co-author with Shoshana Alexander of Awakening Joy, which is based on the course. James has been focusing on Dharma and Climate Change in recent years and is an advisor to One Earth Sangha, a website devoted to Buddhist responses to Climate Change.

Jane Baraz has been meditating since 1976, is a founding board member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and a co-founder of the Spirit Rock Family Program. She completed both the Dedicated Dharma Practitioner’s Program and the Heavenly Messenger Program at SRMC.

She is a mentor for The Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program taught by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. This two-year program trains people to teach mindfulness and compassion in various settings.

Jane teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the University of California San Francisco. She has taught Mindful Self-Compassion for the MBSR staff at the University of Wisconsin, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the Women’s Cancer Resource Center. She enjoys teaching Awakening Joy workshops and weeklong silent meditation retreats in Europe and at Spirit Rock.

Andrew Dreitcer, Ph.D. is a Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. His current research and teaching interests lie in the exploration of the nature and experience of contemplative practices across religious traditions, the relationship between spiritual practices and neuroscientific understandings (http://neurospirituality.blogspot.com), the ways in which contemplative practices form compassionate actions and attitudes of living, and Christianity as a spiritual path of engaged compassion.

He is also Director of Spiritual Formation at Claremont School of Theology and co-director of the Center for Engaged Compassion. Dr. Dreitcer has been the co-founding director of a seminary program in spiritual direction and served 15 years as a Presbyterian pastor. A year spent at the ecumenical monastic community of Taizé significantly shaped his own spiritual life and his perspective on both the role of spiritual formation in theological studies and the value of contemplative studies in academia.

Daniel Ellenberg, Ph.D. is the president of Relationships That Work – an organization that supports people to create more emotionally intelligent personal relationships – and vice president of the Rewire Leadership Institute, an organization that helps individuals, teams and organizations thrive in the business world. He is also the founder and director of Strength with Heart men’s groups and workshops, and co-author of Lovers for Life: Creating Lasting Passion, Trust and True Partnership, which he co-wrote with his wife, Judith Bell.

He has spent over 10,000 hours facilitating groups and workshops over the last quarter century and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on how men can experience greater inner strength and positive relationships by transcending limited aspects of traditional male roles. He has presented at major conferences, on radio, television and other venues. He is also a founding member of the Men’s Counseling Guild, a group of men who facilitate men’s groups and workshops that began in 1985.

Daniel believes in the power of people creating truthful relationships whereby purpose and meaning lead to greater happiness, success and fulfillment. You can reach him at 415.883.5600 – daniel@rewireleadership.com – http://www.rewireleadership.com.

Elissa Epel, Ph.D, is a Professor, and Vice Chair, in the Department of Psychiatry, at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research aims to elucidate mechanisms of healthy aging and to apply this basic science to scalable interventions that can reach vulnerable populations.

She is the Co-Director of the Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center, and the Consortium for Obesity Assessment, Study, & Treatment, (COAST), and the Associate Director of the Center for Health and Community. Her personal website is www.elissaepel.com.

Jan Hanson, M.S., L.Ac. is an acupuncturist and nutritionist whose private practice focuses on nutritional medicine, neurochemistry, women’s health, and temperament issues in children. She is co-author of Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships (Penguin, 2002), as well as numerous articles on evidence-based approaches to complementary medicine.

While working in the Neurochemistry Research Laboratory at the Veteran’s Hospital in Sepulveda, California, Jan co-authored a study that was published when she was 18 years old. She went on to receive a B.A. from UCLA and an M.S. from the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences, in addition to extensive training in clinical nutrition, laboratory assessment, and homeopathy. Jan’s personal interests include her young-adult children, as well as playing the piano, doing arts and crafts, and going for walks with good friends.

For more information, please see Jan’s website at http://www.janhealth.com. You can contact her at janhealth@comcast.net.