The Board of Directors of the Boulder-based Mind and Life Institute, which works to create a powerful collaboration and research partnership between modern science and Buddhism, has confirmed the selection of Professor Arthur Zajonc as its new president. Zajonc, who will formally take up his appointment in January, 2012, succeeds R. Adam Engle, a Mind and Life Co-Founder who served as the president and chair of the Institute for more than two decades.
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Arthur Zajonc PhD (U. Michigan) is professor of physics at Amherst College, where he has taught since 1978. He has been visiting professor and research scientist at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, and a Fulbright professor at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. His research has included studies in electron-atom physics, parity violation in atoms, quantum optics, the experimental foundations of quantum physics, and the relationship between science, the humanities, and the contemplative traditions. He is author or editor of eight books including: Catching the Light (Oxford UP, 1995), The Quantum Challenge (Jones & Bartlettt, 2nd ed. 2006), Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love (Lindisfarne Press, 2009), and with Parker Palmer, The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal (Jossey-Bass, 2010).
It is an honor and privilege to take on the leadership of the Mind & Life Institute as its President. For over 20 years the work of the Mind & Life Institute has enriched our understanding of the mind by bringing together the remarkable achievements of modern research in neuroscience with the equally profound traditions of contemplative inquiry. Together they have the possibility not only of illuminating the nature of mind, but also of addressing many of the sources of suffering that are rooted there. I look forward to continuing the good work of the Institute and to collaborating with the Institute’s many friends and colleagues in the years ahead.
For more on Mind and Life: www.mindandlife.org.
One Comment
It is wonderful to see and difficult to imagine a more qualified individual and leader to bring together the rich meditation and thought traditions of East and West than Arthur Zajonc.