Keynote Speakers
 | Herbert Benson, MD Herbert Benson, M.D., is the Director Emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute (BHI), and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. A graduate of Wesleyan University and the Harvard Medical School, Dr. Benson is the author or co-author of more than 190 scientific publications and 12 books. More than five million copies of his books have been printed in many languages. Dr. Benson is a pioneer in mind/body medicine, one of the first Western physicians to bring spirituality and healing into medicine. In his 40+ years career, he has defined the relaxation response and continues to lead education and research of its efficacy in counteracting the harmful effects of stress. The recipient of numerous national and international awards, Dr. Benson lectures widely about mind/body medicine and the BHI's work. His expertise is frequently sought by national and international news media, and he appears in scores of newspapers, magazines, and television programs each year. Dr. Benson's research extends from the laboratory to the clinic. His work serves as a bridge between medicine and religion, East and West, mind and body, and belief and science. |
 | Cheryl L. Woods Giscombe, PhD, RN, PMHNP Dr. Cheryl Giscombe is an assistant professor at UNC Chapel Hill, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, social/health psychologist, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar. She is dedicated to educating health professions students and facilitating excellence in the provision of care to underserved populations. Her federally-funded scholarly endeavors focus on reducing stress-related health disparities, investigating the cultural-relevance of mindfulness-meditation, and developingcommunity-based, person- centered interventions to promote health. She completed NIH and SAMHSA fellowships and was named an American Psychological Association Early Career "Leader in the Field." As a Macy Faculty Scholar, Dr. Giscombe will develop the Interprofessional Leadership Institute for Mental Health Equity, to (1) engage pre-professional students in curricula and service-learning activities to promote integration of community-based strategies targeting social determinants of health and policy change and (2) enhance workforce diversity (in partnership with Racial/Ethnic Minority-Serving Colleges/Universities) while facilitating educational innovations to eliminate mental health disparities.
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Invited Speakers | |
 | Veronica Y. Womack, PhD Dr. Veronica Womack is a Research Associate and Social Psychologist with the Scientific Careers and Research Development Group at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is also Co-Founder of www.beneaththefacade.org, a website that serves as an empirically-based, psychoeducational resource and digital community for African American women coping with stereotypical expectations and gendered racism. For the past five years, she studied mindfulness influences on the coping strategies and health behaviors (i.e., sleep quality, substance use) of adults. More specifically, for her dissertation, she designed a brief mindfulness intervention to assess its influence on coping strategy preferences among African American college students across types of stressful situations. She also assessed the association of mindfulness and racial socialization messages on coping strategy preferences. Dr. Womack serves as an Associate Project Director with the Urban Mindfulness and Addictions Research Program at Chicago State University. Her upcoming research will assess the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based intervention on sleep quality in a multi-ethnic sample with the Chicago Area Sleep Study (CASS). Veronica is passionate about promoting mindfulness-based initiatives and developing social support networks for underrepresented minorities. |
 | Jeffrey Proulx, PhD Dr. Proulx's primary focus is developmental health psychology. More precisely, he is interested in the relationship between psychological stress and physical health in underrepresented communities. Research has long shown that psychological stress is associated with poor long-term health outcomes, such as heart disease, diabetes, and immune system dysfunction, which are often much higher in minority communities. Therefore, his research explores how stress reduction methods may affect physiological outcomes and whether long-term health outcomes can be predicted by mindfulness practice. He is further interested in how to adapt mindfulness practices to sensibilities of minority communities in ways that leverage existing strengths in those communities. He hopes that this work eventually leads to a better understanding of how mindfulness interventions can play a role in reducing health disparities.
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Ariana Rebesco, PhD Dr. Rebesco is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stony Brook University Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) Center. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Toledo with a primary research focus on relational aggression in emerging adulthood. Dr. Rebesco completed her pre-doctoral internship at Stony Brook University CAPS. In her current role, she provides a variety of clinical services to both undergradate and graduate students at Stony Brook University, working from an integrative framework that often includes mindfulness-based interventions. She co-leads the Mindful Self-Compassion Group offered at CAPS and is also involved in bringing mindfulness to the broader campus community via outreach.
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 | Adam Stein, Rabbi Rabbi Adam Stein is the founder of the Center for Mindful-Based Stress Management (MBSM) and author of the soon-to-be-published book, "Six-Steps to Living in the Moment - Living a life devoid of Stress, Worry and Anxiety". He is an expert in the Kabbalah approach to "Living in the Moment" and has developed a highly exportable and very effective approach to Mindfulness based on guided mental imagery. Rabbi Stein's Self-Management Workshops in MBSM have gained wide acceptance and usage among a diverse student population at Stony Brook University where 375 students have enrolled in the MBSM Teacher's Training Program since Fall 2015. In addition to teaching Mindfulness, Rabbi Stein is also the Director of the Chabad House servicing Stony Brook University. |
| Conference Organizers |
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 | Adam Gonzalez, PhD Dr. Gonzalez is a licensed clinical psychologist and the Founding Director of the Mind-Body Clinical Research Center. He is an expert in cognitive behavioral treatment for mood and anxiety disorders, dialectical behavior therapy, relaxation/mindfulness-based treatments and behavioral medicine. His program of research focuses on understanding the interplay of cognitive, emotional and behavioral health factors that may affect physical and mental health, as well as disease management among chronically ill populations. Dr. Gonzalez received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Vermont, and he completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. In addition to his responsibilities with the Mind-Body Clinical Research Center, Dr. Gonzalez is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Stony Brook University School of Medicine.
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 | Crystal Fleming, PhD Dr. Crystal Fleming is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Stony Brook University. She completed her Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology at Harvard University. She is an expert in the study of race, inequality, cultural sociology and qualitative methods. Her work (which has been funded by national fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, as well as numerous grants) explores how people of African descent interpret, respond to and transcend oppression. Her book Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France is based on her award-winning dissertation and will be published by Temple University Press in 2017. In addition to her research on racism, Fleming is working on several new projects related to mindfulness, intersectionality and well-being, including a project on Black women meditators in New York. |
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