Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is the founder of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society and of its world-renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic. He is the author of numerous bestselling books that have been translated into more than thirty languages.
He received his doctoral degree in molecular biology from MIT in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Salvador Luria, MD. Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s research career focused on mind/body interactions for healing and on the clinical applications of mindfulness training for people with chronic pain and stress-related disorders, including the effects of MBSR on the brain and how it processes emotions, particularly under stress, and on the immune system (in collaboration with Richard J. Davidson, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin). Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s work has contributed to a growing movement of mindfulness into mainstream institutions such as hospitals, schools, corporations, prisons, and professional sports organizations. Medical centers around the world now offer clinical programs based on training in mindfulness and MBSR.
Dr. Kabat-Zinn has received numerous awards over the span of his career, the most recent of which are the Distinguished Friend Award (2005) from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies; an Inaugural Pioneer in Integrative Medicine Award (2007) from the Bravewell Philanthropic Collaborative for Integrative Medicine; and the Mind and Brain Prize (2008) from the Center for Cognitive Science, University of Torino, Italy.
He is the founding convener of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine and a board member of the Mind and Life Institute. Recent projects include editing (with Richard J. Davidson) The Mind’s Own Physician: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama on the Healing Power of Meditation, and editing (with Mark Williams, PhD, of Oxford University) a special issue of the journal, Contemporary Buddhism (volume 12, issue 1, 2011), devoted to the subject of mindfulness from different classical and clinical perspectives. He and his wife, Myla Kabat-Zinn, support initiatives to promote mindful parenting and to further mindfulness in K–12 education. For more information, visit mindfulnesscds.com.