We are pleased to announce the Data-driven Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness (DUNES) webinar series. Launched in June 2024, DUNES has since featured a series of engaging lectures. The series will be hosted live on Zoom and later available for viewing on YouTube.
Our goal is to bring together researchers and students from academia and industry who are passionate about the science of meditation and consciousness. Through this platform, we aim to share cutting-edge research, foster insightful discussions, and facilitate interactive Q&A sessions with global participation. The talks will explore the intersections of neuroscience, psychology, biomedical imaging, machine learning, statistics, and related fields.
Registration details and updates on upcoming talks — including titles, abstracts, and speaker information — will be posted here. Stay tuned, and join us in exploring the fascinating intersections of meditation and consciousness research.
Registration
We invite interested researchers and professionals from academia and industry interested or engaged in research on consciousness and/or meditation to participate and interact in these live webinars. We hope these will foster new collaborations and directions. Students, faculty, and experts from various disciplines and organizations are welcome. The following is the link to the registration form. The Zoom webinar details and updates will be emailed to registered participants.
https://msu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_F5KenHa1Q7Sus37_4ZdhYw#/registration
Series Schedule
Talk 1: June 17, 2024 at 12:00 PM EST
Speaker: Dr. Sara W. Lazar, Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Talk 2: August 19, 2024 at 12:00 PM EST
Speaker: Dr. Joseph E. LeDoux, Henry And Lucy Moses Professor of Science; University Professor; Professor of Neural Science; Professor of Psychiatry; Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University.
Talk 3: September 16, 2024 at 12:00 PM EST
Speaker: Barry H. Cohen; Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; New York University
Talk 4: October 24, 2024 at 12:00 PM EST
Speakers: Barry H. Cohen; Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; New York University and expert meditators
Talk 5: November 18, 2024 at 12:00 PM EST
Speaker: Michael Ferguson; PhD, lead of the Neurospirituality Lab at the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; director of the First-Year Student Wellness Programming at Harvard College.
Talk 6: December 9, 2024 at 12:00 PM EST
Speaker: Julio Rodriguez-Larios; lecturer in Psychology at Brunel University (London).
Talk 7: January 20, 2025 at 12:00 PM EST
Speaker: Emma Huels; postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan.
Talk 8: March 10, 2025 at 12:00 PM EST
Speaker: Ramesh Rao; faculty member at the University of California San Diego; director of the Qualcomm Institute.
Talk 9: March 17, 2025 at 12:00 PM EST
Speaker: Yihan (Sophy) Xiong; PhD student at Vanderbilt University
Talk 10: April 28, 2025 at 11:00 AM EST
Speakers: DUNES Organizers
Talk 11 and 12: May 28, 2025 and June 5, 2025 at 11:00 AM EST
Speaker: Mark Reimers; associate professor of neuroscience at Michigan State University.