I am currently a research fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-Harvard-MIT Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, and a visiting scholar (previously research associate) at the Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology (CompNet) at Boston University. My main research interest is in the investigation of different types of meditation practices (e.g. mindful attention, compassion) from a neuroscientific perspective. I am also collaborating on research studies of other mind-body practices such as acupuncture and yoga.

At present my main study is part of a multisite investigation of meditation and mind-body health (the Compassion and Attention Longitudinal Meditation (CALM) study), which is a collaboration between the Martinos Center, Boston University, Emory University, and the University of Arizona.

The first results from this study are now published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (full article) and have received some press coverage in the Boston Globe, the Huffington Post, the Harvard Gazette, the Epoch Times, the Philippine Star, and as an NIH Research Spotlight.

The second study (still underway) is an exploration of the neural and physiological correlates of more advanced forms of meditation practice which may enable top-down regulation of homeostasis mechanisms classically considered to be beyond voluntary control.

Before joining the field of human brain imaging I was a postdoctoral fellow in computational neuroscience, working in Garrett Stanley's group on neuronal population coding in the early visual pathway (2006-2009).

See my Research Interests for more details.