EMILIANA SIMON-THOMAS KEYNOTES TELLURIDE INSTITUTE’S COMPASSION FESTIVAL 2012

15 Jul EMILIANA SIMON-THOMAS KEYNOTES TELLURIDE INSTITUTE’S COMPASSION FESTIVAL 2012

The opening night of this year’s Compassion Festival will feature a keynote address by Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas, the Science Director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.  Emiliana’s talk—entitled “Compassion:  The Radical Solution to Discord and Diffidence” —is slated for this coming Wednesday, July 18, at 8 pm in the Sheridan Opera House.

Emiliana earned her PhD in Cognition Brain and Behavior at UC Berkeley. Using behavioral, EEG and fMRI methods, her dissertation examined how negative states like fear and aversion influence thinking and decision-making. During her postdoc, Emiliana moved into the positive terrain to study care/nurturance, love of humanity, compassion and awe under the mentorship of Dacher Keltner. From signaling, perceiving and self-reporting of emotions to peripheral autonomic and neural indices of emotion to understanding the psychosocial benefits of emotional authenticity and connection, Emiliana continues to examine the potential for enhancing everything pro-social.

Previously the Associate Director/Senior Scientist at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, Emiliana recently joined the Greater Good Science Center where she continues to study the underpinnings of positive and pro-social states such as compassion, as well as related acts of altruism. Her enthusiasm coupled with her ability to bring very complex scientific findings down to every-day situations make for entertaining and inspiring listening.

Tickets for the Festival, plus a lot more information, can be obtained at http://www.compassionfestival.org/.  If you want to sign up to volunteer please send an e-mail to compassionfestival@gmail.com.