Amishi Jha, PhD, is a neuroscientist and associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami, and Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the UMindfulness Initiative, prior to which she was an assistant professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD from the University of California-Davis in 1998, and received her postdoctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University in functional neuroimaging. She studies the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion, and resilience. With grants from the Department of Defense, and several private foundations, she has been systematically investigating the potential applications of mindfulness training in education, sports, business, and the military.
Jha’s work has been featured in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Emotion, and PLOS ONE, and she serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Frontiers in Cognitive Science, and Frontiers in Cognition. She has received several awards for teaching and innovation in science, including selection as a Poptech Science and Public Leadership Fellow in 2010. She is an internationally recognized speaker who has lectured at the World Economic Forum, Aspen Institute, Pentagon, and NY Academy of Sciences as well as many other forums on topics such as optimizing attention, building brain fitness, mindfulness and other forms of contemplative training, and how to protect the brain from stress and aging. She has been interviewed on NPR, CBS, and NBC, as well as in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, GQ, Newsweek, and Scientific American.