Our Team
Guiding the mission of Compassion Institute
Meet our
Guiding the mission of Compassion Institute
Meet our
Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D. was trained as a monk at the Shartse College of Ganden Monastic University, South India, where he received the Geshe Lharam degree. Jinpa also holds a B.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in religious studies, both from Cambridge University.
Jinpa has been the principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama since 1985, and has translated and collaborated on numerous books by the Dalai Lama including the New York Times Bestsellers Ethics for the New Millennium and The Art of Happiness, as well as Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. His own publications include A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives and translations of major Tibetan works featured in The Library of Tibetan Classics series. Jinpa is the principal author of Compassion Cultivation Training™ (CCT©) developed while at Stanford University in 2009. In 2021, Jinpa’s online self-paced course, Building Compassion from the Inside Out, was launched to the general public.
A frequent speaker at various international conferences on mindfulness, compassion, and contemplative practice, Jinpa serves as an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University, Montreal and is the founder and president of the Institute of Tibetan Classics. He has been a core member of the Mind and Life Institute and its Chairman of the Board since January 2012.
Stephen leads the management staff at Compassion Institute, overseeing development and growth of all our programs around the world.
Prior to joining Compassion Institute, Stephen served as content director and producer for A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment, a top-rated nonprofit meditation podcast that he co-founded. Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment is a podcast and blog that adapts Tibetan Buddhist analytical meditation and mind training techniques to a secular audience. Stephen also served as Program Manager and Producer at San Francisco’s Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies.
For 20+ years Stephen served as an Executive Producer and Director of Production for Native American/Indigenous music label Canyon Records. Stephen produced and managed talent across 200+ productions while upholding a culture-preserving mission and successfully navigating a nuanced genre of music to a global audience. His productions earned 21 Grammy nominations.
As Compassion Institute has identified, the local and global pressures of fast-paced living can often lead to feelings of burnout, loneliness and conflict. Stephen is dedicated to connecting compassion training with the world to create greater individual and societal happiness and peace.
Julie joined CI as Program Director in 2018, and has been dedicated to building CI’s Law Enforcement and Public Safety Program, Courageous Heart: The Human Behind the Badge. Her passion for working with the officers and professionals who dedicate their lives to serving their communities stems from a deep family history of service in law enforcement, public safety, and the military. She has been honored to work with the Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) to bring Certified Courageous Heart Courses to personnel in California.
Julie is a Certified Compassion Cultivation Training™ (CCT™) Teacher, and co-designed and leads CI’s Courageous Heart Instructor Training Program. She also produced Building Compassion from the Inside Out, CI’s two-week online course authored and delivered by the Institute’s co-founder, Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D.
After serving as Director of Programs in Executive Education at Stanford University, and as a consultant to business and education organizations, in 2015, Julie took a leap of faith–quitting her job to take time off to recover from Silicon Valley-style burnout. She redirected a 20-year career in strategy, marketing, communications, and business development, working alongside executives from leading global technology companies and start-ups, to fulfill her dream of serving and supporting the well-being of people who endure high-stress workplaces, through the design and delivery of innovative education strategies and content. In parallel, she has pursued contemplative studies and healing practices for more than two decades.
Julie is humbled and grateful to contribute to reawakening the compassionate nature within our human family, and to spreading the practice of compassion as a key driver to help foster cultural and systemic change, and healing around the globe.
Shari Carlson (she/her/hers) is honored to lead Compassion Institute’s program in support of clinicians and all workers in the health sector and in partnering with leaders and organizations navigating their own systems transformation journeys. She recognizes that fostering a more caring world and promoting well-being requires that we embrace our common humanity and together we engage in self- and collective- care. She supports compassionate leadership development at all levels, and purposefully works to advance social justice, celebrate our diversity, and improve equity and inclusion throughout our organizations and systems.
Shari began her career as a Peace Corps volunteer serving in the Republic of Congo and the Côte d’Ivoire before providing direct service and managing programs in multiple nonprofit social service agencies serving individuals and families experiencing or at risk of homelessness or seeking asylum as survivors of torture and severe trauma. Among the many great roles over the years, she had the pleasure of managing grants and programming at the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) Foundation in support of medical and pre-medical students across the globe who sought out supplementary learning and leadership opportunities outside of their medical schools. For ten years before joining Compassion Institute, Shari served as a regional director of operations in a state government Department of Social Services leading and supporting hundreds of employees working to assist families. Prior to her current role as program director, Shari served as CI’s senior program manager, Health and Systems Transformation.
Shari holds her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley with a double major in social welfare and dramatic arts and her Master of Business Administration from George Mason University. Outside of work, Shari enjoys volunteering, going on walks, reading, and being a mother and grandmother, to humans and fur-babies.
Tori Higa-Sarris (she/her/hers) manages training programs and public facing offerings for Compassion Institute including CCT Teacher Training, Building Compassion from the Inside Out, and Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) offerings taught by certified teachers across the world.
Tori graduated from University of Puget Sound and began her career as an AmeriCorps member, working to improve financial insecurity in the Seattle area. She has spent her career working in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, launching innovative pilot programs that support the growth of her community and working to reduce racial disparities.
Tori continues to work toward being anti-racist, pursuing non-optical allyship, and educating herself on issues of cultural appropriation & systemic racism in her community. She is excited to continue exploring ideas of mindfulness, compassion, and anti-racism as part of the Compassion Institute team.
Since joining Compassion Institute in 2020, Tori has had the privilege to work across teams and interact with CI’s work on multiple levels. She is now honored to support the growth of compassion across the globe through her work with the public facing programming. In her current role, she gets to interact with people across the world who have the common goal of increasing compassion in their communities.
In her free time, Tori can be found outside- hiking, running, camping, and backpacking with her family in Central Oregon.
Logan Smith (he/him/his) is proud to join the Compassion Institute as the Digital Operations Manager. He focuses on assisting with and developing digital assets and teams for the Compassion Institute including program assistance, website development, and social media management among other tasks.
Logan graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) in 2021 with both a B.A. in Communication and an M.S. in Digital Social Media with minors in Performance Science and Theatre. During his time there, he co-founded a student-run theatre company called Impulse focusing on contemporary theatre and participated in activities with the Performance Science Institute dedicated to performing at your best using evidence-based approaches in a variety of fields.
In his free time, Logan spends his time in Los Angeles on social media, finding new meditative and healing practices, and performing in the creative arts including acting, singing, and comedy.
Jonathan Ayala (he/him/él) is happy to join Compassion Institute as the Program Manager for CI’s Health program. He focuses on managing the daily operations and programming for partner organizations.
Jonathan is an alum of Northwestern University and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), where he earned an MFA in creative writing. He began his career as a City Year Corps Member in Washington, D.C. and a Washington AIDS Partnership AmeriCorps member doing HIV prevention education and testing at the Latin American Youth Center. He has since been working in health equity for vulnerable communities, most recently at NMAC (formerly the National Minority AIDS Council), where he managed advocacy training and leadership development programs for Long-Term Survivors of HIV.
Outside of work, Jonathan is also a fiction writer and the writer of Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism, a newsletter about art and culture produced during the height of the HIV epidemic. In his free time, he enjoys taking boxing classes, meditating, reading, and listening to Janet Jackson records with his boyfriend. He lives in San Luís Obispo, California.
She completed her medical degree at Queen’s University in Ontario Canada, and then obtained her training in Family Medicine in Newfoundland Canada. She also has training in emergency medicine and obstetrical ultrasound. Over her career she has provided full spectrum family practice including obstetrical care and remote medicine, and has worked in both Canada and the US. She currently lives in Calgary Alberta and continues to work as a GP Oncologist and family physician in Yellowknife NWT Canada. In her spare time she enjoys cooking and being out in nature with her husband.
Maria Paula is a Senior Compassion Cultivation Training© (CCT™) Instructor. She served as a Faculty member of the Spanish version of the CCT™ Teacher Training offered in Spain through Nirakara Institute. Simultaneously she is the Administrator of the Live Online Mindful Self-Compassion program offered by the Center for Mindful Self Compassion. She is also a lecturer, organizational consultant and advisor to groups and individuals on topics related to well-being/ whole-being, change, contemplative practices, mindfulness, and compassion.
María Paula studied Psychology at Los Andes University, with a minor in business. She is an expert in Corporate Social Responsibility from Sergio Arboleda University and in Integrative Therapies from the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad del Rosario. In addition, she completed an Integrative Medicine Training with the International Sintergética Association.
She has offered trainings, talks, and conferences to different audiences in Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Spain, and the United States.
Philippe Goldin, PhD is a Professor at UC Davis and leads the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. His team is currently engaged in (a) basic research on the brain networks that differentiate different types of emotion regulation strategies; (b) clinical research on the neural bases of psychopathology; and (c) clinical intervention research examining the brain and behavioral mechanisms of therapeutic change during Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and Compassion Cultivation Training in adults with anxiety, depression and chronic pain disorders.
Jenna Pryor, MSW (she/her/hers) is a macro-level social worker focusing on evaluation, learning, and program design. Jenna currently holds a Master’s degree in Social Work, with a concentration in social policy and evaluation, from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Michigan State University. She began her career working with the formerly incarcerated community in Michigan through various internships and assisted in several large research studies within the criminal justice system. As the Research, Evaluation, and Learning Consultant at Compassion Institute, Jenna provides support and thought leadership to the Health & Systems Transformation team on evaluation approaches and the sharing of program knowledge.
Yayoi holds M.A. in Media and Governance, and B.A. in Environmental Information from Keio University, Japan.
She studied computer graphics/interactive art in Keio. After working in an exhibition production firm BOCTOK in the mid-90s, she became an exhibition coordinator at the curatorial department of NTT Inter Communication Center in Tokyo. During this time she worked with artists from different parts of the world and traveled extensively attending various art festivals/conferences.
Yayoi moved her base to Colorado in 1999, and has been working in various fields including software development, website design, and managing an artist-in-residence program.
Yayoi continues to work in an area where technology meets creativity, and art that explores mental/physical boundaries. She is a regular face at the annual Burning Man event in Nevada where she brings large scale Mammoth skeleton quad cycle that is propelled by the ad hoc participants. She very excited to take part in the mission of Compassion Institute and to learning more about CCT™ and its positive benefits, not only for individuals, but for the world as a whole.
Hrayr Artunyan is a tech leader with a clear focus on purposeful innovation. With a B.S. in Computer Science from UCI and a Master’s in Engineering from UCLA, he’s well-equipped to navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape. As the CTO of Engagez, he’s driving practical and user-centric solutions. Beyond business, Hrayr has been advising the Compassion Institute since January 2020, merging tech expertise with the institute’s mission of promoting empathy and well-being. Whether it’s for a business or a cause, Hrayr is all about making technology work for people.
K.C. is a board member at Compassion Institute. From 2017 to May 2020, K.C. served as volunteer full-time Executive Director, and led the development of CI’s program portfolio, and management of staff in the important start-up phase of the organization.
K.C. is a retired software industry CEO and serial entrepreneur who has served as a senior operating executive and/or board director of several high growth companies both public and private. In 1989, Branscomb was recognized by the Wall Street Journal’s Centennial Edition as one of the 28 highest potential young executives in America. Education includes Stanford University (MBA 1980), Polytechnic Institute of New York (BS/MS Applied Mathematics 1976), and BA Sarah Lawrence College (‘76).
She is Vice President of the Branscomb Family Foundation, which secured the exclusive license to CCT™ from Stanford on behalf of Thupten Jinpa and the Compassion Institute in 2016.
Beth Cross, co-founder and CEO of Ariat International, was born and raised on a thoroughbred farm outside of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Beth received her BA from the University of Colorado in 1986, and her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1988.
In 1990, Beth and co-founder Pam Parker, a classmate from Stanford GSB, met while working at Bain & Company in San Francisco. While focusing on strategic marketing and product development for Reebok, they saw an opportunity to apply the principles of athletic shoe technology and sports marketing to the equestrian footwear market.
In 1992 Ariat International was founded, and the first Ariat riding boots shipped in 1993. Today, Ariat is the largest equestrian footwear and apparel brand in the world, and continues to lead the market in designing, developing and manufacturing the most innovative footwear, apparel and denim for the world’s top equestrian athletes.
Beth was honored as Entrepreneur of the Year® 2018 in the Consumer Driven category by Ernst & Young. She is a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council, and is a past member of the Stanford GSB Management Board. Beth currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Two Ten Footwear Foundation as well as Compassion Institute. She is also an active member of the Barbary Coast/Exiles Chapter of Young Presidents Organization (YPO). Beth currently resides in San Mateo, CA with her husband, and they have three grown children.
Kirk O. Hanson stepped down recently as Executive Director of Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, where he held the John Courtney Murray, S.J. University Professorship in Social Ethics for 17 years. Previously Kirk taught business ethics at the Stanford Business School for 23 years and is recognized as one of the founders of the academic field of business ethics. He has been an emeritus faculty member at Stanford since 2001.
Hanson has published widely on managing the ethical and public behavior of corporations and their leaders. His research interests include the design of corporate ethics programs and the responsibilities of boards for the ethical culture of organizations. Hanson has consulted with more than 125 corporations, nonprofit organizations, health care entities, and government bodies on the design of ethics programs and the resolution of ethical dilemmas.
Hanson was the founding president of The Business Enterprise Trust, a national organization created to honor exemplary behavior in business. He was the Honorary Chair of the first business ethics center in China and the first Chair of the Santa Clara County Political Ethics Commission in Silicon Valley. He currently serves on several foundation and non-profit boards, has been honored by the Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education and the American Leadership Foundation Silicon Valley, and has received honorary doctorates from Santa Clara University and the University of Portland for his work on business responsibility.
From November 2012 until his retirement in December 2015, Gellein served as Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Inc., a publicly traded real estate investment trust (“REIT”) with a portfolio of luxury hotels. From August 2010 to November 2012, he served as Strategic Hotels & Resorts’ non-executive Chairman, and from August 2009 to December 2015, as a director.
He served as President of the Global Development Group of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. from July 2006 through March 2008, and as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., a subsidiary of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., a publicly traded hotel and leisure company, from October 1999 to July 2006. Gellein is also Chair Emeritus of the American Resort Development Association and served as Vice Chairman and Treasurer of the Mind and Life Institute for 12 years.
As a past Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Resort Development Association, he also has extensive knowledge of the legislative and regulatory issues related to the vacation ownership business.
Alem Makonnen (she|her|we) is a leader, educator, and consultant with over 30 years’ experience guiding organizations and individuals to achieve mission-driven impact and transformative change. She provides nimble strategic counsel to the public and private sector at critical inflection points. Alem is a natural bridge-builder, adept at integrating diverse interests to produce successful outcomes in complex spheres.
Her expertise seamlessly spans health, education, equity, contemplative practice, and the arts, enabling her to enact meaningful innovation across diverse disciplines. One hundred percent of the efforts she has led have become replicated models.
Alem taught at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, led an awarded health program, and was appointed to the Chancellors Advisory Committee. She shaped the design and delivery of Mindful Schools that has trained over 50,000 educators, spanning 100+ countries, reaching over 3 million children worldwide. At UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, School of Medicine, Alem served as faculty, leadership advisor, and Director of Global Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
Fostering a more compassionate world is a natural extension of Alem’s deeply held way of being. Alem is dual certified by the Compassion Institute and Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford Medicine, Stanford University. She was invited to serve as a Delegate to the United Nations Convening on Education and Global Citizenship. She received a humanitarian award in recognition of her unwavering commitment to advancing collective well-being and alleviating suffering in the world.
Alem was educated at UC Berkeley, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and Harvard. She is dedicated to advancing compassion in medicine, health care systems, and innovations in health care education.
Margaret Cullen is a licensed psychotherapist and was one of the first ten people to become a Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher. For over 20 years, she has pioneered secular contemplative programs for a wide variety of populations including physicians, nurses, HIV positive men, cancer patients, overweight women, military spouses college students, clinicians and educators.
She has developed and taught contemplative interventions for research studies at Stanford, UCSF, Portland State, Penn State, University of Michigan, and University of Miami. In 2013, she developed a mindfulness and compassion program (MBAT – Spouse) for military spouses that she piloted at Ft. Drum, Maxwell Air Force Base, and Joint Operations Special Command. In 2015, she co-authored a book on Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance (MBEB), an evidence-based program that she piloted across the US and Canada. She has also designed and co-delivered teacher trainings for both MBAT-Spouse and MBEB.
As a clinician, Margaret has been a facilitator of support groups for cancer patients and their loved ones for 25 years. In 2010, she was invited by Thupten Jinpa to contribute to the development of the Compassion Cultivation Training. A meditator for over 35 years, she has sat dozens of intensive retreats ranging from ten days to three months and has written extensively on mindfulness. Nothing brings her greater joy than contributing to a more compassionate world.
Monica Hanson teaches the Compassion Cultivation Training program for the public at Stanford University in the School of Medicine. Her focus is on fierce compassion, choosing compassionate values, and compassion led social innovation.
In 2013, she was the lead teacher in a research study for Stanford Medicine Neuroscience and Pain Lab, examining the effects of compassion training, chronic pain and the impact on significant others. In 2017, Monica started a collaborative effort to identify and exchange emerging best practices in teaching compassion.
While the last decade focused on compassion and meditation, Monica’s earlier work focused on applying symbolic systems in innovative environments at Nike and Apple.
Erika Rosenberg, Ph.D., is a scientist and a meditation teacher. She is a senior investigator on the Shamatha Project, a comprehensive study of the effects of intensive meditation, at U.C. Davis’s Center for Mind and Brain.
Currently, Dr. Rosenberg serves as Founding Faculty at the Compassion Institute and has been a senior teacher at Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education since 2009. In 2010 she offered the new CCT course at Google, Inc. and presented the CCT™ program to His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Stanford University. Since then, she has been teaching CCT™ in regular and intensive formats worldwide.
Dr. Rosenberg is faculty at the Nyingma Institute of Tibetan Studies in Berkeley and has offered meditation trainings in diverse international venues such as Lerab Ling Monastery, Upaya Zen Center, Kripalu Yoga Center, the Telluride Institute, and Burning Man.
Kelly McGonigal is a psychologist whose work shows us how to experience hope, connection, and meaning—even when life is difficult.
She is a lecturer at Stanford University and the author of the international bestseller The Willpower Instinct, The Upside of Stress, and The Joy of Movement.
Her TED talk “How to Make Stress Your Friend”—which reveals how stress can be a catalyst for courage and compassion—is one of the most viewed TED talks of all time.
The Covid-19 pandemic inspired her to help people find hope and connection through joy, including launching The Joy Collective book club for Literati, creating The Joy Workout for The New York Times, and hosting conversations about the power of joy for communities around the world.
Leah served as Director of Education at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education from 2010-2013. At HopeLab, Leah previously directed the contemplative education initiative. She now consults for the Omidyar Group’s 21st Century Leadership Initiative. Her book Heart At Work, published by HarperCollins, will be released in early 2018.
Leah has keynoted, taught, and consulted in diverse settings including Harvard-affiliated hospitals, Kaiser Permanente, the Young Presidents’ Organization, LinkedIn, and at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Concurrent with her graduate work, Leah completed the traditional Tibetan Buddhist teacher-training curriculum. She is a board member of the Journal of Interreligious Dialogue, writer for the Harvard Business Review, and reviewer for the Journal of Positive Psychology and Columbia Business Review. She lives in Palo Alto with her husband and three children.
Gonzalo Brito Pons, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who has worked with diverse populations in Chile, Peru, and Spain, integrating Western psychological approaches with traditional medicine and contemplative practices. As a certified yoga teacher and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) instructor, he has included these practices in his clinical work and workshops for health care professionals and educators over the last decade.
Gonzalo is a certified instructor of the Compassion Cultivation Training© (CCT™) Program and serves as a supervisor for Spanish-speaking teachers in training.
Currently living in Granada, Spain, Gonzalo combines his therapeutic work with ongoing compassion-based and mindfulness-based programs, collaborating regularly with several educational and health organizations.
