Advisory Board

Ken McLeod, M.Sc.

Ken McLeod is a prolific translator, author and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. He also holds an M.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of British Columbia. He is renowned for his ability to hold both eastern and western perspectives, and both scientific and philosophical approaches. He is recognized for having developed an innovative, “pragmatic” approach to the practice of Buddhism that integrates the traditional and modern and emphasizes direct experience. He has served as a senior management consultant to large organizations and continues to innovate ways to present traditional Buddhist perspectives in a new way through the organization Unfettered Mind.

David Presti, Ph.D.

David Presti, PhD. is a Senior Lecturer of Neurobiology, a neurobiologist and cognitive scientist at the University of California in Berkeley.  Between 1990 and 2000, he also worked as a clinical psychologist in the treatment of addiction and of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco.  He has doctorates in molecular biology and biophysics from the California Institute of Technology, and in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon.  He was a core faculty member in the California School of Professional Psychology (Alliant University) graduate program in psychopharmacology from 1999-2010, providing training to clinical psychologists interested in the possibility of prescribing psychotropic medications.  He is actively engaged through several channels in an evolving dialogue between scientists and contemplative practitioners, a conversation inspired and initiated in the 1980s by the Dalai Lama, and, as a part of that project, has, since 2004, been teaching neuroscience to Tibetan monastics in India.  His areas of expertise include the chemistry of the human nervous system, the effects of drugs on the brain and the mind, the treatment of addiction, and the scientific study of the mind and consciousness.

Carol Davis Ph.D.

Carol Davis PhD. is an actor, director, and chair of the department of Theater, Dance, and Film at Franklin and Marshall College. She is also the founding artistic director of the Nepal Health Project, an educational and charitable theatre company that treks to villages throughout Nepal with plays and workshops on health and hygiene, and teaches creative dramatics to children in the orphanages of Kathmandu. Carol is a 2012 Fulbright Scholar and has a Ph.D. in Theater from UC Berkeley. Her articles have appeared in Asian Theatre Journal, Theatre Symposium, Mime Journal, Education About Asia, Encyclopedia of Asian Theatre (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), and Not For Sale: Bearing Witness, Making Politics (Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2004).

Marvin Cohen, Ph.D.

Marvin L. Cohen, a Professor at UC Berkeley and a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is one of the most influential condensed-matter physicists in the world.   Among many other distinctions he is the recipient of the 2017 Franklin Medal in Physics, the 2011 Dickson Prize in Science, and the President’s National Metal in Science in 2001.

Berkeley, CA