Renowned Curriculum Contributors
Janet N. Ahn, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Psychology William Paterson University
Karen Bluth, Ph.D
Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Tara Cousineau, Ph.D
Clinical Psychologist Harvard University
Robert Biswas-Diener, Ph.D
Managing Director
Positive Acorn, LLC
Christopher Germer, Ph.D
Co-developer Mindful Self-Compassion Program
Clinical Psychologist
Harvard University
Cheryl L. Woods Giscombe, PhD, PMHNP, FAAN
LeVine Distinguished Term Associate Professor of Quality of Life, Health Promotion, and Wellness
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Itzel Hayward, JD
Radical Self-Love Coach
Lynne Maureen Hurdle, Ph.D
Conflict Resolution Strategist, Facilitator, Speaker, and Coach
Justin Nai’im Hurdle-Price
Conflict Resolution Trainer, Facilitator, and Speaker
Mark Leary, Ph.D
Garonzik Family Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Duke University
Daniel Lerner, MAPP
Clinical Instructor New York University
Crystal McCreary
Mindfulness Educator, Speaker, and Writer
Cory Muscara, MAPP
Assistant Instructor, Master of Applied Positive Psychology
University of Pennsylvania
Matt Newlin, Ed.D.
Higher Education Consultant
Nidia Ruedas-Gracia, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Alan Schlechter, MD
Clinical Associate Professor
New York University
Janet N. Ahn, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Psychology
William Paterson University
Janet N. Ahn, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at William Paterson University and the Director of the Motivation + Innovation Lab. She received her B.A. in Psychology from Barnard College, Columbia University and completed her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from New York University. Her research investigates human goal pursuit and motivation. She has examined how people’s goal pursuit is affected by what they infer about others’ goals (via projection) and what they believe about others based on their attributes (via transference and stereotyping). She also creates interventions to increase high school students’ motivation and persistence in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) fields as well as developing innovative technological tools to increase student retention in college. She has published over a dozen papers in peer-reviewed empirical journals and her work has been featured in various media outlets such as Women’s Health Magazine, NPR, American Educator, the Business Insider, CBS, and USA Today.
Karen Bluth, Ph.D
Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Karen Bluth is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Fellow at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, and a certified instructor of Mindful Self-Compassion, an internationally acclaimed 8-week course created by Dr. Kristin Neff and Dr. Chris Germer. Dr. Bluth’s research focuses on the roles that self-compassion and mindfulness play in promoting well-being in youth. As such, she is co-creator of the curriculum Making Friends with Yourself: A Mindful Self-Compassion Program for Teens, the teen adaptation of Mindful Self-Compassion for adults, and author of the book “The Self-Compassion Workbook for Teens: Mindfulness and Compassion Skills to Overcome Self-Criticism and Embrace Who You Are” (New Harbinger Publishers). Additionally, Dr. Bluth is Associate Editor of the academic journal Mindfulness, and founder of The Frank Porter Graham Program on Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Families. As a mindfulness practitioner for over 40 years, a mindfulness teacher, and an educator with 18 years of classroom teaching experience, Dr. Bluth frequently gives talks, conducts workshops, and teaches classes in self-compassion and mindfulness in educational and community settings. In addition, she trains teachers in Making Friends with Yourself internationally.
Tara Cousineau, Ph.D
Clinical Psychologist
Harvard University
Tara Cousineau, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and author. She currently works as a staff psychologist at Harvard University’s Counseling Center. She is the author of The Kindness Cure: How the Science of Compassion Can Heal Your Heart (New Harbinger Publications, 2018) and an upcoming book, The Perfectionist’s Dilemma (Alcove Press, 2025). Dr. Cousineau is a mindfulness meditation teacher and on faculty at The Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA. She is a trained facilitator in mindfulness education, including the Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens curriculum and the Mindfulness Institute for Emerging Adults program. She is a founder of KindMinds, which is devoted to bringing “kindfulness” practices to individuals, schools and workplaces through speaking engagements and workshops. More info a www.taracousineau.com and www.kindminds.co.
Robert Biswas-Diener, Ph.D
Managing Director
Positive Acorn, LLC
Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener has spent his career studying groups of people traditionally overlooked by mainstream psychologists. His research on happiness has taken him to far-flung places where he has worked with Amish farmers in the USA, sex workers in India, hunters in Greenland, peace protesters in Palestine, and the Maasai of Kenya, among others. He is a leading authority on strengths, culture, courage, and happiness and best known for his pioneering work in the application of positive psychology. Robert is also particularly interested in how the results of positive psychology research can be applied to work, relationships, and society. He has authored more than 70 academic publications and eight books including The Upside of Your Dark Side, Happiness, and Positive Provocation. Robert has trained professionals at a range of organizations including Standard Chartered Bank, Australia Department of Defense, and Humana Healthcare. He lives in Portland, Oregon (USA), and is passionate about rock climbing, cats, and drawing.
Christopher Germer, Ph.D
Co-developer Mindful Self-Compassion Program
Clinical Psychologist
Harvard University
Christopher Germer, PhD is a clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry (part-time) at Harvard Medical School. He is a co-developer of the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program, which has been taught to over 100,000 people around the globe, and author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion and co-author of Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program and The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook. He is also a co-editor of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy and Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy. Dr. Germer is a founding faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy as well as the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School. He teaches and leads workshops internationally on mindfulness and compassion, and has a private practice in Arlington, Massachusetts, USA specializing in mindfulness and compassion-based psychotherapy. Websites https://chrisgermer.com/ https://centerformsc.org
Cheryl Giscombe, PhD, PMHNP, FAAN
LeVine Distinguished Term Associate Professor of Quality of Life, Health Promotion, and Wellness
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. Cheryl Giscombe is the Melissa and Harry LeVine Family Distinguished Term Associate Professor in the School of Nursing. She is a psychiatric nurse practitioner, health psychologist, certified holistic health coach, and Fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and the American Academy of Nursing. Dr. Giscombe’s research focuses on biopsychosocial factors that influence health and health disparities through psychological stress and coping pathways. Dr. Giscombe is an Inaugural Fellow/Design Partner for the Harvard Macy Institute’s Art Museum-Based Health Professions Education Fellowship. As a Josiah Macy Faculty Scholar, Dr. Giscombe developed the Interprofessional Leadership Institute for Behavioral Health Equity. Her research, practice, and teaching activities integrate mindfulness practices in clinical, community, and educational settings to promote optimal health, wellbeing, and equity for all.
Itzel Hayward, JD
Radical Self-Love Coach
Itzel Hayward is a compassionate and fierce advocate for love. After serving as a public policy lawyer for 13 years, Itzel left her legal career and founded Attuned Living, a mindfulness and wellness organization that helps individuals heal the sense of separation they feel from others—or even from themselves. Her unique work—based on the teachings of yoga, mindfulness, and compassionate communication—ranges from promoting social justice work within organizations and communities to guiding individuals on their search for personal and professional fulfillment. Today, Itzel holds retreats, classes, trainings, and private one-on-one sessions online, over the phone, and in person with people from all over the world. Her mission is to gently remind you of your individual wholeness and your interconnectedness with others and all of life.
Lynne Maureen Hurdle, Ph.D
Conflict Resolution Strategist, Facilitator, Speaker, and Coach
Dr. Lynne Maureen Hurdle, author of the best seller, Closing Conflict for Leaders, is a conflict resolution strategist, facilitator, TEDx speaker and coach with over 40 years of experience. Lynne is known as The Conflict Closer, not just because she helps leaders gain the skills they need to dig deep and finally close the door on those conflicts that have been plaguing their life for too long, but also because she helps leaders bring conflict closer. By helping bring conflict close enough to examine the roots of it, the fruits of it and the long-lasting effects it has on business and life, Lynne makes conflict less scary by helping to actually see it, get to know it, and be in relationship with it. Over her forty year career, Lynne has helped people from Harlem to Hong Kong transform through a mix of different styles and methods. She brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and her special Lynnergy to every client.
Justin Nai’im Hurdle-Price
Conflict Resolution Trainer, Facilitator and Speaker
Justin Nai’im Hurdle-Price is a conflict resolution trainer, facilitator and speaker. He began facilitating workshops for young people and adults at the age of 10, delivering workshops in schools, for non-profits and at national conflict resolution conferences across the country. He has worked as a trainer coach for youth from all different backgrounds, spoken on panels and television, and has helped design workshops for parents, teachers, and young people. As a proud African American male he has participated in sit-ins, walk-outs, protests, and solidarity days. He grew up with a mom and dad who spent a lot of time talking with us, listening to us, and encouraging us to use our talents to facilitate workshops from an early age. He brings wisdom, enthusiasm and honesty to every workshop, training and speaking engagement.
Mark Leary, Ph.D
Garonzik Family Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Duke University
Dr. Mark Leary is the Garonzik Family Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. He earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from West Virginia Wesleyan College and his doctoral degree in social psychology from the University of Florida. He taught previously at Denison University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Wake Forest University, where he served as department chair.
Leary has published 14 books and more than 250 scholarly articles and chapters on topics dealing with social motivation, emotion, and self-relevant thought, including The Curse of the Self: Self-awareness, Egotism, and the Quality of Human Life. He has also recorded two courses for the Teaching Company:Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior and Why You Are Who You Are: Investigations into Human Personality.
Leary is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He received the Lifetime Career Award from the International Society for Self and Identity and was co-recipient of the Scientific Impact Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. He was founding editor of the journal, Self and Identity, editor of Personality and Social Psychology Review, and in 2015, served as President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Professor Leary blogs regularly on personality and social psychology for psychologytoday.com and is Editor for Character and Context, the blog of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Daniel Lerner, MAPP
Clinical Instructor
New York University
As a speaker, teacher, and strengths-based performance coach, Daniel Lerner is an expert in positive and performance psychologies. His key theme is that developing a healthy psychological state has a profound impact on the pursuit of excellence—a message that he brings to students, established and high-potential performing artists and athletes, and executives at Fortune 500 companies and startups worldwide. Lerner is on the teaching staff at the University of Pennsylvania, and is a clinical instructor at New York University, where he has taught “The Science of Happiness” to almost 6000 students over the past eight years. Following a decade at International Creative Management (where he specialized in the representation and development of young performers), Lerner studied closely with renowned sports psychologist Dr. Nathaniel Zinsser—a Director of The Center for Enhanced Performance at the United States Military Academy at West Point—focusing on coaching and performance enhancement techniques employed by professional and Olympic athletes. He holds a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and co-authored U Thrive: How to Succeed in College (and Life), which was released in Spring 2017 by Little, Brown, and Company.
Crystal McCreary
Mindfulness Educator, Speaker, and Writer
Crystal McCreary is a Lead Yoga, Mindfulness and Health Educator & Teacher Trainer with 13+ years of experience in instructing yoga and mindfulness to people of all ages. She has a passion for implementing comprehensive wellness programs within schools and organizations to foster compassionate and equitable communities and sustainable work environments. Crystal’s expertise is derived from a lifetime of harnessing powerful embodied, contemplative tools necessary to navigate the unique challenges of living as a Black cis-woman in an inequitable world. She has facilitated trainings for many organizations that aim to support the social and emotional wellbeing of youth and adults including New York Department of Education, CUNY-Hunter Public Health Department, Mindful Schools, Little Flower Yoga, Lineage Project, and she currently works full-time in the Health Department at The Dalton School in New York. Crystal graduated from Stanford University with a BA in African and African American studies, completed The American Conservatory Theater’s Master of Fine Arts program in Acting, and is registered with Yoga Alliance as a 500-ERYT and RCYT. When the stars align, she occasionally appears as an actor on film or television. Crystal is excited to soon release a yoga and mindfulness resource for children with the support of Bala Kids (Shambhala Publications, with the Penguin Random House publishing group).
Cory Muscara, MAPP
Assistant Instructor, Master of Applied Positive Psychology
University of Pennsylvania
Cory Muscara is an international speaker and teacher on the topics of presence and well-being. He believes that when people are deeply fulfilled, they are a better force in the world for other beings, the environment, and their communities. For the past few years, he has taught mindfulness-based leadership at Columbia University and currently serves as an instructor of positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2012, Cory spent 6 months in silence living as a monk in Burma, meditating 14+ hours per day, and now aims to bring these teachings to people in a practical and usable way, presenting to schools, organizations and healthcare systems, as well as through workshops and retreats for the general public. He has been featured multiple times on the Dr. Oz show, and his meditations have been heard more than 10 million times in over 50 countries. Cory is the author of Stop Missing Your Life: How to Be Deeply Present in an Un-Present World.
Matt Newlin, Ed.D.
Higher Education Consultant
Dr. Matt Newlin is a higher education practitioner, speaker, and consultant with 15 years’ experience supporting and advocating for first-generation and low-income students. Matt most recently served as Director of Rural Initiatives with the National College Advising Corps where he worked to increase postsecondary enrollment for students from rural and small-town communities in Missouri. Prior to College Advising Corps, Matt worked at both public and private universities in a variety of student affairs and enrollment management positions. At the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University he established the school’s first need-based scholarship; a first-generation student support program; and campus-wide financial literacy initiatives. Prior to that, Matt worked in financial aid at the University of Missouri – St. Louis where he developed and led workshops for high schools and community colleges to educate low-income, first-generation students and families about financial aid and the transition to college. Matt holds a Doctor of Education in Higher Education Leadership from Maryville University, a Master of Education in Higher Education from the University of Missouri – St. Louis, and two Bachelor of Arts degrees (Communication and English) from the University of Missouri – Columbia.
Nidia Ruedas-Gracia, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Nidia Ruedas-Gracia is an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Research in her lab (Gracia Lab) seeks to develop a nuanced understanding of what it means to “belong” and how this sense of belonging impacts life outcomes such as academic performance and mental health. Together with her research team, she focuses on exploring these concepts among culturally diverse populations, and examining how sense of belonging is associated with various social identities (gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc.).
Alan Schlechter, MD
Clinical Associate Professor
New York University
Alan Schlechter, MD is a clinical associate professor at NYU Langone Medical Center and the director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Services at Bellevue Hospital Center. In his role as Director he treats and helps organize the care of some of the most vulnerable children and families in New York City. Alan teaches “The Science of Happiness” to almost 1,000 NYU students each year, in which he shares the mental health education that he believes all people should receive early in life. Alan is interested in using the best science that we have to foster behaviors and thoughts that might help prevent mental illness and grow well-being. In addition to co-authoring U Thrive: How to Succeed in College (and Life), he recently co-edited Becoming Mindful: Integrating Mindfulness Into Your Psychiatric Practice. He is a highly competitive Connect Four player and lives in Greenwich Village with his wonderful wife and two spectacular daughters.
Emily Esfahani Smith, MAPP
Author, Speaker, Journalist
Emily Esfahani Smith is a writer, editor, and speaker in Washington DC. In her writing, she draws on psychology, philosophy, and literature to write about the human experience—why we are the way we are and how we can find grace and meaning in a world that is full of suffering. Her book The Power of Meaning, an international bestseller, has been translated into 16 different languages. In 2017, Smith delivered a talk called “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy” on the main stage of TED, which has been viewed over 8 million times. The former managing editor of The New Criterion, Smith’s articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and other publications. Smith studied philosophy at Dartmouth College and received her master’s degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she continues to serve as an assistant instructor in positive psychology.
Tim Urdan, Ph.D
Professor of Psychology and Child Studies
Santa Clara University
Tim Urdan has been a professor at Santa Clara University since 1996. He was an assistant professor at Emory University in the Division of Educational Studies for two years before moving to Santa Clara University. Dr. Urdan received his Ph.D. from the Combined Program in Educational Psychology at the University of Michigan, his Ed.M. at Harvard, and his B.A. in Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research areas include academic motivation, adolescent development, cultural and ethnic identity, and adaptive educational environments. He lives in Berkeley and has two children.
Jo Ellyn Walker, Ph.D
Staff Psychologist & Wellness Director
Georgetown University
Dr. Jo Ellyn Walker is a licensed clinical psychologist who believes diversity without inclusion is an incomplete & ineffective stance, & that diversity/inclusion work is everyone’s work. Having developed a passion for social justice early, Dr. Walker has worked for years to address health disparities, & other forms of oppression through various roles in student & academic affairs; as well as community agencies. She engages in individual & institutional level interventions to support healing, thriving, & foster the empowerment of marginalized communities. This multimodal work has included: providing group & individual therapy, providing training & consultation regarding crisis management & mental health referral, conducting & presenting research that emphasizes intersectionality in health & higher education contexts, & collaborating to enhance campus/organizational climate. Dr. Walker holds a Ph.D. in counseling psychology & Master’s in education from Texas A&M University; as well as a Bachelor’s in psychology from Northwestern University. She currently works as a Staff Psychologist & Wellness Director at Georgetown University.
