The Future of Meditation '26

Matthew D. Sacchet, PhD

Associate Professor and Director, Meditation Research Program, Mass General and Harvard Medical School

Matthew D. Sacchet is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General). Dr. Sacchet and his team study advanced meditation: states, stages, and endpoints of contemplative practice that unfold with mastery. He has authored more than 150 publications, presented more than 170 times, and been cited more than 10,000 times. Dr. Sacchet has received generous support from numerous foundations and repeat awards from the primary federal funding bodies in the United States. His work has been covered extensively by mainstream media and he is an Associate Editor of the academic journal Mindfulness, and a Research Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute.

meditation.mgh.harvard.edu

Monica Sanford, PhD

Assistant Dean for Multireligious Ministry; Lecturer in Ministry Studies, Harvard Divinity School

Monica Sanford is one of the first fully-trained Buddhist practical theologians in the United States, having earned her PhD in practical theology from Claremont School of Theology. She also holds an undergraduate degree in design from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a master of divinity from University of the West. Sanford is an ordained Buddhist lay minister in a Chan lineage and trained as a Buddhist chaplain. Her recent book, Kalyāṇamitra: A Buddhist Model for Spiritual Care (January 2021), is the first textbook for Buddhist chaplains.

hds.harvard.edu/people/monica-sanford

Francis X. Clooney, SJ

Parkman Professor of Divinity, Harvard University

Francis X. Clooney is the author of numerous articles and books, including Thinking Ritually: Retrieving the Purva Mimamsa of Jaimini (Vienna, 1990), Theology after Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology (State University of New York Press, 1993), Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and His Hiding Place Is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence (Stanford University Press, 2013). His translation of the Hindu theologian Ramanuja's Manual of Daily Worship (Nityagrantham) appeared in the International Journal of Hindu Studies in 2020.

francisclooney.hsites.harvard.edu

Sarah Eagger, MB BS, FRCPsych

Chair, Janki Foundation

Sarah Eagger is a retired consultant psychiatrist formerly at Imperial College London, who chairs the Janki Foundation, a UK-based charity that promotes spirituality in healthcare. She serves on the executive committees of both the Religion, Spirituality, and Psychiatry section of the World Psychiatric Association and the Special Interest Group on Spirituality at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK). With over 45 years of experience in Raja Yoga meditation, she is also a teacher of Mindful Self-Compassion and a co-author of Stillness in the Storm: 7 Tools for Coping with Fear and Uncertainty.

jankifoundation.org/chair-dr-sarah-eagger-mbbs-frc-psych-london

Rev. Rita Powell, MFA

Chaplain, Harvard Episcopal Community, Harvard University

Rita Powell is the Episcopal Chaplain at Harvard, where she leads a diverse community committed to exploring the future of religion and Christianity through innovative engagement with land, ritual, liturgy, art, music, poetry, and the church's legacy of slavery. She has lived and worked in South Dakota, with the Taizé community in France, and at Trinity Church in Copley Square, Boston. She recently earned her MFA in poetry. She is also an avid KPop fan, yoga teacher, and distance runner.

chaplains.harvard.edu/people/rita-powell

Kathryn Devaney, PhD

Chief Science Officer, The Consciousness Foundation

Kathryn Devaney is a neuroscientist and meditation researcher who co-founded the SF Dharma Collective and designed the course "Meditation and the Brain" at Stanford. She has lectured at MIT, Harvard, and IIT Delhi, and previously taught Cognitive Psychology at Boston University. From 2022 to 2025 she was a co-founder and the founding Executive Director of The Berkeley Alembic, a science advisor at Jhourney.io, and a researcher at the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.

kathryndevaney.com

Andrew Olendzki, PhD

Director, Graduate Program in Mindfulness Studies; Professor, Lesley University

Andrew Olendzki is a professor at Lesley University in Cambridge MA, and the director of its graduate program in Mindfulness Studies. He is a scholar of early Buddhist thought and practice with a special interest in Buddhist psychology and its relevance to the modern world. He spent years in leadership roles in Buddhist practice communities in Barre, MA, has worked for the Mind & Life Institute, and has taught at many New England colleges. He has contributed chapters to a dozen books and is the author of Unlimiting Mind: The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism (Wisdom 2010) and Untangling Self: A Buddhist Investigation of Who We Really Are (Wisdom 2016).

Susan Pollak, EdD

Co-Founder & Senior Teacher; Co-Director, Grand Rounds Program, Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School

Susan Pollak is a co-founder and senior teacher of the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, Harvard Medical School, at Cambridge Health Alliance, and co-director of the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion Grand Rounds Program. She has taught at CHA for over 30 years. Dr. Pollak is the Co-editor of The Cultural Transition (with Merry White); Co-author of Sitting Together: Essential Skills for Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy, with Thomas Pedulla and Ronald Siegel; Contributing author of Mapping the Moral Domain (edited by Carol Gilligan); Contributing author of Evocative Objects (edited by Sherry Turkle); Contributing author of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, 2nd edition, and author of Self-Compassion for Parents. She is a contributing author to the new Grounding Psychotherapy in Self-Compassion (2025). She is a frequent writer of The Art of Now blog for Psychology Today and for the newsletter Happier.

Blair T. Johnson, PhD

Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut

Blair T. Johnson is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut, where he teaches courses related to health psychology, attitude change, systematic review methods, and psychology of the arts. He is widely recognized for his contributions to meta-analysis, which he describes as "the original big data." His current research focuses on the impact of mindfulness interventions on outcomes important to mental and physical health. He and his teams have been awarded numerous grants, most prominently from the U.S. Public Health Service, especially N.I.H. Professor Johnson recently completed a decade-long term as a senior editor with Social Science & Medicine and is the outgoing Editor in Chief of Psychological Bulletin.