NOM

Our Team

Antoine Lutz

Director of Research
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center

Project Goal

Overall research question focuses on characterizing the neurocognitive mechanisms meditation practices in particular nature of mind practices and their impacts on brain plasticity, self, emotion regulation and behaviors.
Conceptual and experimental research on the experiential aspects of contemplative practices.

Relevant Past Experience

  • Neurophenomenological approach to relate the first-person and third-person aspects of meditation practices during scientific studies and in computational models of meditation.
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Education

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John Dunne

Distinguished Professor of Contemplative Humanities
University of Wisconsin – Madison

Project Goal

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Relevant Past Experience

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Education

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Olaf Blanke

Director Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)

Project Goal

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Relevant Past Experience

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Education

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Michael Sheehy

Research Associate Professor and Director of Research
Contemplative Sciences Center, University of Virginia

Project Goal

Relevant Past Experience

  • Director of CIRCL Contemplative Innovation + Research Co-Lab
  • Studied in Tibet for many years
  • 10-year transdisciplinary work in meditation research
  • Research interests in dream yoga, visualization, and nature of mind practices

Education

  • PhD in Buddhist Studies


David DiValerio

Associate Professor
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Project Goal

Relevant Past Experience

  • Mountain Dharma: Meditative Retreat and the Tibetan Ascetic Self (Columbia UP, 2025)
    • A study of the history of individual long-term meditative retreat
    • Based on close reading of 31 texts offering instruction on how to do an individual retreat
    • 12th century to early 21st century
    • རི་ཆོས་ (richos)
    • technologies of self

Education

  • PhD from the University of Virginia


Elena Antonova

Reader (Associate Professor) in Contemplative Neuroscience
Lead of the Lab for Experiential Neuroscience and Analysis (LENA)
Brunel University London, UK

Research Interest

  • Differentiating focus from fixation
  • Three ways of liberating within the nature of mind
  • Remarkable events (Nyams) and their relationships

Relevant Past Experience

  • 1st person methods for studying meditative experiences
  • EEG microstates and their sequencing to characterise brain dynamics
  • Sensory information processing using psychophysiology methods (startle reflex and its modulation)

Education

•PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience (2004)

•Mind and Life Institute Research Fellow (2017)

•Student of Tsoknyi Rinpoche (2008)