Professional Training Faculty

Please click on our professional training faculty teacher’s name to view a listing of their next training program and register online.

 Nancy Bardacke, R.N., C.N.M., M.A.

Nancy Bardacke, RN, CNM, MA, is a nurse-midwife, mindfulness teacher, and founding director of the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting (MBCP) Program which she currently teaches at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. She also leads a Professional Development and Teacher Training Program in MBCP at that same institution.  She is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the UCSF School of Nursing. Nancy began assisting birthing families four decades ago and has been a meditation practitioner since 1982.  Her professional training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) with Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD. began in 1994 and she has taught MBSR courses for patients with a wide variety of health challenges. In 1998 Nancy began developing her pioneering Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting program and has now taught 65 MBCP courses and numerous mindfulness workshops to several thousand expectant parents.  Nancy has also taught mindfulness courses and workshops for healthcare professionals both nationally and internationally, Her book, Mindful Birthing: Training the Mind, Body and Heart for Childbirth and Beyond, Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn (HarperCollins) is scheduled for publication in 2012.

 
Jan Bays, M.D.

Jan Bays, M.D., received a BA degree with honors in biology from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and an M.D. degree from University of California at San Diego. She has taught pediatrics as an assistant professor at UC San Diego and clinical instructor of pediatrics at OHSU. In the late 1980′s she helped found the Child Abuse Response and Assessment Center (CARES NW) at Legacy Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon, where she served as medical director for ten years. Dr. Bays has written a number of articles for medical journals and also book chapters on aspects of child abuse. Her latest book, Mindful Eating: Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food (Shambhala Publishing, 2009), was inspired by the current epidemic of obesity in America. She currently works part-time for CARES NW as a consultant and lecturer for the Regional Training and Consultation Center in Portland. She lectures on child abuse and mindful eating both in the US and in Japan.

Sarah Bowen, Ph.D.

Sarah Bowen, Ph.D., is currently a research scientist at the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. Both her clinical work and research focus on mindfulness-based interventions for relapse prevention, with a specific focus on mechanisms of change, including negative affect, thought suppression and craving. She has authored several articles and chapters on this and related topics, is a co-author of the Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Addictive Behaviors: A Clinician’s Guide, and has served as an investigator several related grants. Dr. Bowen has led several MBRP trainings in the U.S. and Canada, and has facilitated and supervised MBRP groups in both private and county treatment agencies, and at the VA Medical Center in Seattle. She is particularly interested in the application of mindfulness-based work to dual-diagnosis populations.

Neha Chawla, Ph.D.

Neha Chawla, Ph.D., is one of the co-creators of MBRP and co-author of the Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Addictive Behaviors: A Clinician’s Guide. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her research interests include the development and evaluation of mindfulness-based treatments for substance use disorders, understanding mechanisms of change, issues related to therapist training and dissemination, and the assessment of therapist competence. Neha has facilitated several MBRP groups in private and community treatment settings in Seattle and on the East-coast.

Larissa Duncan, Ph.D.

Larissa G. Duncan, Ph.D.is an Assistant Professor in the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Department of Family and Community Medicine and a core faculty member of the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. Dr. Duncan is a developmental psychologist and integrative medicine researcher who completed training as an MBSR instructor with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Bob Stahl. Her program of research focuses on studying mindful parenting and testing the impact of mindfulness interventions delivered to families during two key developmental transitions: pregnancy and early adolescence. She is funded by NIH/NCCAM to investigate the effects of a mindfulness enhancement to the CenteringPregnancy group care model of prenatal healthcare delivery on biological and psychological aspects of maternal stress in the perinatal period. She conducted the first study of the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting (MBCP) program and she is currently collaborating with Nancy Bardacke, CNM on several related studies testing the effects of MBCP. With Dr. Doug Coatsworth and Dr. Greenberg at Penn State University, she is the co-developer of a mindfulness-based enhancement to a widely used prevention program for families of young teens designed to teach parents skills to enhance their mindful parenting and foster empathy and compassion in their relationships with their children.

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is in private practice in west Los Angeles and is co-author of, A Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn. As a licensed Psychologist, he teaches mindfulness-based programs in his own practice, has taught several through InsightLA and frequently leads seminars on the applications of mindfulness in psychotherapy and stress reduction. He teaches workshops at UCLA Extension, University of Washington, UCLA Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Conference, NICABM’s Psychology of Health, Immunity and Disease conference, among others. He has authored articles and the Mindful Solutions audio CD series on the work of mindfulness-based interventions in relation to stress, anxiety, depression, addictive behaviors, success at work and ADD/ADHD. He pens the popular column Mindfulness and Psychotherapy at Psychcentral.com, Huffingtonpost.com, and Mentalhelp.net.

Joel Grow, M.S.

Joel Grow is currently a graduate student in clinical psychology at the University of Washington, working in the Addictive Behaviors Research Center. His research focuses on clinical applications of mindfulness meditation, primarily in the area of addictive behaviors. He has specific interests in therapist training and dissemination, as well as brief interventions and integrated primary care. He has taught in the university setting for the past 10 years, and was awarded the UW Extension “Award for Teaching Excellence” in 2005. He co-facilitates MBRP groups in both private and community treatment settings.

Steven Hickman, Psy.D.

Steven Hickman, Psy.D., established the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness in 2002 and has taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for six years, “graduating” over 30 classes since that time. He is a clinical psychologist specializing in health psychology and works within the UC San Diego Medical Center and the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center providing treatment to patients with chronic pain, cancer and a variety of other primary medical problems. He teaches a graduate course in Mindfulness in Psychotherapy and has spoken at national conferences on the application of mindfulness in a variety of contexts and situations. He is also engaged in research on the application of mindfulness in a medical setting and has been a teacher for this 5-day Professional Training in MBCT since its inception in Southern California.

Catherine Polan Orzech, M.A., L.M.F.T.

Catherine Polan Orzech, MA, LMFT, has taught Mindfulness and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for the last nine years. Catherine received her initial training at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and her professional training under the direction of Jon Kabat-Zinn. She has taught and lectured on the subject of mindfulness internationally and was founder and co-director of the Montreal Center for Mindfulness. In addition to teaching MBSR, Catherine is a marriage and family therapist specializing in mindfulness-based psychotherapy focusing on individuals, children and families experiencing interpersonal and relational stress. She also received certification as a doula in 1999, and is in the process of becoming a certified childbirth educator through Childbirth International.

Zindel Segal, Ph.D.

Zindel Segal, Ph.D., is the Morgan Firestone Chair in Psychotherapy in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Toronto and is Director of the Cognitive Behavior Therapy Unit at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health. He is the co-author of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse published by The Guilford Press. Dr. Segal has studied and published widely on psychological treatments for depression for more than 20 years. He is a widely respected teacher and workshop leader whose use of insights from both the academic literature and his personal mindfulness practice is much lauded by participants.

Ferris Buck Urbanowski, M.A.

Ferris Buck Urbanowski, M.A. has taught mindfulness meditation since 1980. She currently teaches, lectures and gives workshops in a variety of settings, nationally and internationally, including teaching workshops at retreats in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, classes for corporations, for lawyers, professionals, and with Professor Len Riskin, training programs and workshops for mediators. From 1992 to 2001, Ferris was a senior teacher at The Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the UMass Memorial Medical Center, (formerly the University of Massachusetts Medical Center). While at The Center, she taught in the Stress Reduction Clinic and administered and taught in the Professional Training programs offered there. Ms. Urbanowski has been a yoga teacher and practicing meditator since 1972. She has studied in the yogic, Zen Buddhist and Vipassana (insight meditation) traditions. She received her M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Antioch New England in 1982 and had a psychotherapy practice in Peterborough, New Hampshire until 1994 where she worked with individuals, couples and families.

Zayda Vallejo, M.Litt.

Zayda Vallejo, M.Litt was born in Colombia, South America. She  completed her Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and a Master’s degree in Political Economics at Oxford University in England. She has been practicing meditation and yoga since 1978. She currently teaches the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, and the Practicum (a training program for professionals aspiring to teach MBSR)  at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society, and MBSR classes at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She co-developed a Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention Program for women in addiction recovery for the Boston Public Health Commission. From 2005-2010 she was part of the faculty of the Transforming Trauma Initiative at the Garrison Institute, NY. Over the years, she has taught mindfulness courses in a variety of settings including the Worcester Public Schools, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, the Council on Aging, the Head Start Program, and many others.

Char Wilkins, M.S.W., L.C.S.W.

Char Wilkins, MSW, LCSW is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist trained to teach Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and mindful eating awareness programs. She has been awarded teacher certification in MBSR by the Center for Mindfulness, UMass Medical School, Worcester, MA. She has had a personal meditation practice since 1995 and is currently studying Qigong and Taijiquan. Char specializes in stress-related physical and emotional issues, women who have experience childhood abuse, and those who suffer with depression, anxiety and disordered eating. She also trains professionals in the application of mindfulness in psychotherapy, advanced MBCT skills, mindful eating, and leads mindfulness retreat/trainings for professionals. She provides consultation in the use of mindfulness in professional settings. Char serves on the Board of Directors for The Center for Mindful Eating and is the owner/director of the Center for Mindful Living, LLC in Connecticut.  www.amindfulpath.com

Susan Woods, M.S.W., L.I.C.S.W

Susan Woods, M.S.W., L.I.C.S.W is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist in private practice. She specializes in working with depression, anxiety and stress related conditions. Ms. Woods is extensively trained in the clinical application of mindfulness-based approaches, teaches the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programs and has been awarded MBSR teacher certification by the Center for Mindfulness, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA. Ms. Woods teaches professional training programs in MBCT, leads mindfulness-based professional training retreats and has presented on the clinical application of mindfulness at numerous conferences. She provides consultation and supervision in mindfulness-based approaches and has been involved in MBCT clinical research projects. Ms. Woods is a published author in the training of health professionals in mindfulness, has been practicing yoga and meditation since 1981 and is a certified yoga instructor. www.slwoods.com