John Arden

John Boghosian Arden, PhD, ABPP is a psychologist who, in addition to clinical duties, served as the Director of Training for Northern California Kaiser Permanent Medical Centers, coordinating psychology and social work internships and post-doctoral residencies across 20 centers for nearly two decades. He is an internationally renowned speaker on the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy and has published over a dozen book on that and related topics, most recently the Mind-Brain-Gene: Toward Psychotherapy Integration (2019).

Sandy Blaine

Sandy Blaine, MAPP

Sandy Blaine is an author and expert wellness consultant who works with the deep connection between physical health and emotional well-being. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she has worked with high-profile tech and wellness companies on well-being curricula and wellness program development. Sandy earned her Master’s in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016. While at Penn, she was one of four graduate students selected to work on an in-depth consulting project for the country of Ireland’s national health service, and spent a semester advising them on incorporating positive psychology concepts and resources into the country-wide Healthy Ireland Initiative in development at the time. She specifically worked within her specialty, mind-body integration, developing and proposing scalable positive-psychology-based wellness recommendations. Being invited to work on a project with the potential to positively impact the well-being of an entire country was the opportunity of a lifetime, and is one of Sandy’s proudest and most fulfilling accomplishments. A life-long yoga practitioner, she is the author of two books, Yoga for Healthy Knees and Yoga For Computer Users, and is currently writing a third on mind-body integration and happiness.

Kaylan Baban

Kaylan Baban, MD
MPH Chief Wellness Officer
George Washington University School of Medicine

Kaylan Baban, MD, MPH is a lifestyle, preventive and mind-body physician. She serves as Chief Wellness Officer and Assistant Professor at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She is also a clinical advisor for Maven Clinic. She earned her medical degree and master of public health at Mount Sinai School of Medicine of New York University. Dr. Baban is an advocate for accessible evidence-based holistic care to promote prevention, treatment of chronic diseases, patient empowerment, optimized health outcomes, and health justice.

Maria Benzo

Maria Benzo

Physician and Clinical Researcher

Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division, Mayo Clinic

Dr. Maria Benzo is a Physician and Clinical Researcher currently working for the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division in Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN. She has been actively leading pulmonary rehabilitation programs for chronic lung diseases for the past decade of her practice. As part of her practice she has incorporated integrative medicine, mindfulness and positive psychology, to improve patients’ quality of life and clinically significant health outcomes. She is also actively applying health coaching and motivational interviewing for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as a valuable tool to advance the home-based pulmonary rehabilitation. She lead the Mindfulness-based Coaching for Behavioral Change Training for aspiring candidates that collaborate with Remote Patient Monitoring interventions in the Mindful Breathing Laboratory. She received her MD from Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, her specialty in physical medicine and rehabilitation from Instituto Nacional Rehabilitacion Psicofisica del sur, Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and her Master of Science in Positive Psychology from Life University, Marietta GA.

Gina Duncan

Gina Newsome Duncan, MD, FAPA
Board Certified Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Author, Consultant

Dr. Gina Newsome Duncan is an adult psychiatrist in private practice at Eastover Psychological and Psychiatric Group in Charlotte, North Carolina. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia and her M.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She completed her general psychiatry internship and residency at Harvard at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/McLean Hospital Adult Psychiatry Residency Program in Boston, MA. In her final year of residency she served as Chief Resident of Psychotherapy in the MGH outpatient clinic and received the MGH Ann Alonso Award for Psychotherapy. She was also a recipient of the American  Minority Fellowship and developed a church-based mental health promotion project called  Applied Resilience (A.L.T.A.R.)TM.

Prior to joining Eastover Psychological and Psychiatric Group, Dr. Duncan served as an Assistant Professor
of Psychiatry and as the Associate Dean for Admissions for the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) at
Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia. While at MCG she also served as the psychiatrist for Project
GREAT (Georgia Recovery-Based Educational Approach to Treatment). Dr. Duncan’s clinical focus is on the use of medication management and psychotherapy in the treatment of adult mood and anxiety disorders as well as ADHD. Her other areas of special interest include the intersection of spirituality and psychiatry, disparities in health and achievement that disproportionately affect underserved communities, strength-based approaches to building resilience, and faith- and community-based approaches to addressing disparities in mental health. She is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and served as a blogger on the APA’s HealthyMinds.org website. Dr. Duncan regularly presents and provides consultation to community and faith-based groups as well as academic and professional organizations. She has been a featured guest on Wisconsin Public Radio https://www.wpr.org/shows/how-handle-holiday-stress and on the television show QC@3 https://qclife.wbtv.com/psychiatrist-explains-the-mental-toll-of-the-coronavirus-crisis/. Dr. Duncan is the lead author of two book chapters: “Shared Decision-Making” in Handbook of Recovery in Inpatient Psychiatry (Springer, 2016) and “Culture and Minorities: Positive Psychology and Positive Psychiatry Perspectives” in Positive Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychology (Springer, 2020). She is also featured in the book What About Me? Staying Healthy and Whole (While You’re Helping Others) by Renée Hill Carter (Dream Releaser Publishing, 2019) in the chapter “Mental Health in the Church: In Conversation with Gina Newsome Duncan, M.D.  gina.n.duncan@gmail.com

Jordyn Feingold

Jordyn Feingold, MD, MSCR, MAPP
Resident Physician, Psychiatry

Jordyn Feingold, MD, MSCR, MAPP is a resident physician in psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Her research and clinical interests involve disorders of gut-brain interaction and the biopsychosocial model of digestive diseases, health care worker well-being, and incorporating positive psychology approaches into health care delivery. She is involved in research, curriculum development, teaching, and advocacy locally and nationally on these topics. Jordyn has developed and implemented evidence-based resilience trainings for physicians, including an online course open to all clinicians called Thrive-Rx. She is author of the book Choose Growth: A Workbook for Transcending Trauma, Fear, and Self-Doubt (out August 2022).

Jonathan Fisher

Jonathan Eliot Ester Fisher, MD FACC
Clinical Cardiologist
Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher
Organizational Resilience and Well-being Consultant and Program Facilitator

Jonathan Eliot Ester Fisher, MD FACC is a clinical cardiologist, a staff physician at Novant Health Heart and Vascular Institute, and a certified mindfulness meditation teacher. He serves on the Novant Health Heart and Vascular Institute Human Experience Team, the Novant Health Corporate Onboarding and Engagement Program Design Team, and the Novant Health Clinical Ethics Steering Committee. He is also medical director for the Cardio-Pulmonary-Oncology Rehabilitation and Wellness Program, NHHMC. Dr. Fisher completed internal medicine internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a fellowship in cardiovascular disease at Mount Sinai Medical Center, receiving multiple honors and awards throughout his training. His prior work has included serving as a private practice general cardiologist, consultant in vascular diseases and teaching attending Mount Sinai Medical Center, Cardiac Intensive Care.

Barbara Fredrickson

Barbara Fredrickson, PhD
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina

Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D., is Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC-Chapel Hill, she directs the Social Psychology Doctoral Program and the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory (a.k.a., the PEP Lab, www.PositiveEmotions.org).

Dr. Fredrickson is most known for her “Broaden-and-Build Theory” of positive emotions, foundational within affective science and positive psychology for providing a blueprint for how pleasant emotional states, as fleeting as they are, contribute to people’s resilience, wellbeing, and health. She has published >130 peer-reviewed articles and her general audience books, Positivity (2009, www.PositivityRatio.com) and Love 2.0 (2013, www.PositivityResonance.com) have been translated into dozens of languages. Among the most highly cited scholars, she was recently identified as in the top 0.01% of scientists (across 22 scientific fields) in terms of career-long scholarly impact. She also teaches a popular and free online course (via Coursera) and, through this and other means, her ideas have influenced scholars and practitioners worldwide. Her scientific work has been recognized with multiple awards, and in 2017, she was honored with the Tang Prize for Achievements in Psychology, awarded to recognize exceptional career contributions to the well-being of humanity.

David Fryburg

David A Fryburg, MD
President and Co-Founder, Envision Kindness, Inc

David Fryburg, M.D., is the President and co-founder of Envision Kindness, a non-profit to promote kindness, compassion, joy, and love in health care and elsewhere through kindness media. Fryburg is also the author of a blog series entitled the “Science of Kindness” distributed by Psychology Today and other outlets. In his other professional work, Fryburg has led teams of scientists from academia, government and industry to solve problems in how we measure or diagnose disease for the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Biomarkers Consortium. Fryburg was previously a faculty member of the University of Virginia as well as global head of translational medicine for cardiovascular, metabolic and endocrine diseases at Pfizer and the recipient of multiple awards and grants. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and trained at University of Texas SW Medical School and Yale University.

Prachi Garodia

Prachi Garodia M.D. ABIM, ABIHM, DipABLM

Prachi Garodia, MD is a Whole Health Champion and National Education Champion for the Veterans Affair’s Administration.VA, leading Whole Health implementation at Puget Sound Veterans Affair’s Administration. She serves as the Whole Health Medical Director VA VISN 20 ECHO and VISN Educator. She also co-chairs the Happiness Science and Positive Health MIG at the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Dr. Garodia has an Integrative and Internal Medicine practice and co-authored a book chapter on Ayurveda.

Gail Ironson

Gail H. Ironson PhD
Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry
University of Miami

Gail Ironson, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Miami and a Board certified Psychiatrist. She received her MD from the University of Miami, her PhD from the University of Wisconsin, and she did her residency training in Psychiatry at Stanford University. She has more than 250 publications in the field of behavioral medicine and positive psychology. She is past President of the Health Division of IPPA, past President of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and is President – Elect of the American Psychosomatic Society. She is also a current or past member of the editorial board of five journals. She has directed federally funded research studies investigating psychological factors in long survival with illness (especially HIV), stress management, and treatments for traumatized individuals. Her current areas of focus include examining positive psychological factors (including a focus on spirituality) in health and recovery from trauma.

Erika Jackson

Erika Jackson

VP, Training and Operations for Wellcoaches

Erika Jackson is the VP, Training and Operations for Wellcoaches, leading a team of 30 coaching leaders from all of the world who have trained over 13,000 coaches since 2002. She is co-author of critical health and wellness coaching texts such as The Coaching Psychology Manual, The Complete Handbook of Coaching (Chapter 22) and A Pilot Study of Health & Wellness Coaching for Fibromyalgia. Erika is also an instructional design consultant for ImprovEdge, combining neuroscience and improvisation, and volunteer instructional designer for Braver Angels, designing workshops that bring Americans together to bridge the partisan divide.

Anna Lembke

Anna Lembke, MD is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. In 2016, she published Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop (Johns Hopkins University Press), which was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic. Dr. Lembke also appeared in the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, which provides an unvarnished look at the impact of social media on our lives. In her new book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021), an instant New York Times bestseller, Dr. Lembke explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world.

Liana Lianov

Liana Lianov, MD, MPH, FACLM, FACPM, DipABLM
President, Global Positive Health Institute

As an innovative global leader in lifestyle medicine, Liana Lianov, MD, MPH, FACLM, FACPM, DipABLM has advanced the movement for integrating positive psychology into health care. She led the development of the original lifestyle medicine core competencies for physicians and health professionals, which have recently been expanded to include positive psychology-based knowledge and skills. She serves as the chair of the Happiness Science and Positive Health Committee of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), lead faculty for the ACLM Physician and Health Professional Wellbeing Program, and vice-chair of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine.

Dr. Lianov is the immediate past president of the Positive Health and Wellbeing Division of the International Positive Psychology Association, A few of her notable past roles include president of the ACLM, director for the Healthy Lifestyles Division of the American Medical Association and board regent for the American College of Preventive Medicine. She also directed programs in heart disease, stroke and cancer prevention at the California Department of Health Services.

In 2018, Dr. Lianov convened the inaugural Summit on Happiness Science in Health Care cosponsored by the ACLM and Dell Medical School, which led to scholarly publications and a groundbreaking book on how to integrate happiness science into medical practice, Roots of Positive Change, Optimizing Health Care with Positive Psychology. To further this mission, she founded the Global Positive Health Institute that provides positive psychology education and practical tools for health professionals to use in their clinical practices and support their personal well-being.

Sam Manger

Sam Manger, MBBS, BSc, FRACGP, FASLM

General Practitioner/Family Physician

President of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine

Dr Sam Manger is a General Practitioner/Family Physician, Academic Lead for the Master, Graduate Diploma, Graduate Certificate in Lifestyle Medicine and Senior Lecturer with James Cook University College of Medicine and Dentistry. He is also a Senior Medical Officer in the Mental Health Services with Queensland Health, Ambassador for Equally Well Australia, President of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine (ASLM) and host of The GP Show podcast thegpshow.com.

Darshan Mehta

Darshan Mehta, MD is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mehta is also principal investigator of the Stress Management and Resiliency Training for Employees and their Family Members program at Benson Henry Institute-MGH, principal investigator of The Lived Experience of Depression educational project, co-principal investigator of the Stress Management and Resiliency Training in Healthcare Providers project at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Physician’s Organizations, and co-investigator for the Mind Body Intervention Program for Physicians in the MGH Cancer Center. He serves on the Resilience, Well-Being and Prevention Think Tank at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Department of Psychiatry, the MGH Workplace Well-Being Collaborative and Allies-in-Action at MGH. He is also the MGH Site Director, Practice of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mehta has a long and distinguished record of mentorship and formal teaching and national and internati9onal presentations.

Gia Merlo

Gia Merlo, MD, MBA

Gia Merlo, MD, MBA, is Clinical Professor of Nursing, and Senior Advisor on Wellness at New York University (NYU). She is also Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Dr. Merlo is the author of the book Principles of Medical Professionalism, Oxford University Press, May 2021. She serves on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine in the area of Psychiatry and Mental Health. She has been active on multiple national professional organizations including leadership roles of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) Pre-professional Member Interest Group (LMPP). In 2020, she was elected to the Board of Directors of Plant Powered Metro New York after serving on the Advisory Medical Board in 2019.

Dr. Merlo has served on various boards including as a board member of the Academy of Professionalism in Health Care where she served as the Chair of the 2017 Annual Meeting in Chicago, as a member of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Alumni Board, as a member of the board of directors for Laurel House, and a member of the board of directors for Child Advocates of Houston.

Judith T. Moskowitz

Judith T. Moskowitz, PhD, MPH
Professor, Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University

Trained as a social psychologist, Dr. Moskowitz studies the impact of positive emotion on adjustment to health-related and other life stress. She is the Principal Investigator of several NIH-funded trials of an intervention designed to increase positive emotion and improve psychological and physical well-being in people experiencing various types of life stress. Her research team is currently conducting trials of the intervention aimed at improving health and health behaviors in dementia caregivers, high school students, people with type 2 diabetes, women with stage IV breast cancer, and people living with HIV. She earned her PhD from Dartmouth College (1993) and MPH from the University of California, Berkeley (1994).

Ryan M. Niemiec

Ryan Niemiec, PsyD
Education Director, VIA Institute on Character

Ryan M. Niemiec, Psy.D. is a leading international figure in the education, research, and practice of character strengths that are found in all human beings. He’s education director of the renown VIA Institute on Character, a nonprofit organization in Cincinnati that leads the global advancement of the science of character strengths. Ryan is an award-winning psychologist, certified coach, annual instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, special guest faculty at 5 coaching and positive psychology institutes, and author of 11 books, 90+ academic papers, and several-hundred user-friendly articles. His books include the bestselling consumer book, The Power of Character Strengths, the popular stress workbook The Strengths-Based Workbook for Stress Relief, the 2020 workbook The Positivity Workbook for Teens, and Positive Psychology at the Movies. He’s also author of the two leading practitioner-focused books in positive psychology – Character Strengths Interventions and Mindfulness and Character Strengths. The latter book contains the evidenced-based program he founded, Mindfulness-Based Strengths Practice (MBSP), used by practitioners across the globe.

Ryan has been interviewed by a number of luminaries including the legendary Larry King in 2020. He’s given nearly 1,000 presentations on positive psychology topics, including a character strengths world tour in 2009-2010, a TEDx talk in 2017, a speaking tour of Australia, a keynote at a Harvard conference, and invited presentations at conferences across the globe. He is Fellow of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and serves on their Council of Advisors. He is currently co-founder and president of the Spirituality/Meaning Division of IPPA.

Ryan lives in Cincinnati with his wife and three young, zestful children. His highest strengths are hope, love, honesty, fairness, spirituality, curiosity, and appreciation of beauty. He’s an avid chess player, zealot of Michigan State University, super-fan of The Walking Dead, and a collector of vintage Pez dispensers.

Kristen Nishimi

Kristen Nishimi completed an MPH in Social and Behavioral Sciences and PhD in Population Health Sciences at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She is currently a Data Science postdoctoral fellow in Mental Health at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Healthcare System and the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on understanding how trauma and PTSD, as well as psychological resilience, influence behavioral and chronic disease outcomes across the life course.

Jane Oh

Jane Oh, MD
Hospice Physician
Methodist Home Care and Hospice

Jane Oh, MD, DipABLM, is an internal medicine physician in primary care and practices hospice medicine and hospital medicine in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is certified in Stress Management and Resiliency Training through the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School and has conducted research study with neuroscience clinicians in the use of the SMART program in counteracting stress, burnout and building resilience. This work naturally led her to become board-certified in Lifestyle Medicine. She has a special interest in the work of Kristin Neff on self-compassion and its importance in our outlook, sense of well-being and capacity to live a healthier, happier life.

Eddie Phillips

Edward M. Phillips, MD,
Assistant Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Harvard Medical School and is Founder and Director of the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine (ILM) at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.

He serves as Whole Health Medical Director at VA Boston Healthcare System and is integrating lifestyle medicine training for health professional trainees across the VA as National Whole Health Education Champion for Professional Trainees. Phillips is a Fellow of American College of Sports Medicine (FACSM) and serves on the executive council that developed the Exercise is Medicine global initiative. He co-hosted the NPR Daily Exercise Podcast, WBUR’s Magic Pill which was awarded an Edward R. Murrow award for Excellence in Innovation. Phillips is on the Advisory Board of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the Health Sector of the United States National Physical Activity Plan and is a founding committee member of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine.

Cynthia Pury

Cynthia Pury, PhD, MS, BA is Professor of Psychology, Clemson University. She received her PhD and MS from Northwestern University. Her major research interests involve courage, choice and virtue psychology, emotions, and situational demands on behavior and she has a lengthy publication record. She serves as Associate Editor of The Journal of Positive Psychology and is co-editor of the American Psychology Association’s text The Psychology of Courage.

Mark Rowe

Mark Rowe, MD
Family Practice Physician, Waterford Health Park

Mark Rowe, MD, has been a practicing family physician for over 20 years, having graduated from Medical School (UCD, Ireland) in 1991. He is the founder of the Waterford Health Park, which has become both the base for Dr. Rowe’s medical practice as well as the ‘Lifestyle Medicine Be Well Clinic’. The Healthcare Facility was a short listed finalist for World Building of the year at the World Architecture festival awards in 2010.

In 2013, the Waterford Health Park received the Global Health Improvement Award, ‘A Place to Flourish.’ Dr. Rowe is the author of two books – ‘A Prescription for Happiness: The Ten Commitments to a Happier, Healthier Life’ and ‘The Men’s Health Book’. Mark is also a regular contributor for a number of publications including the Farmer’s Journal, where he shares his thoughts on positive health and wellbeing practices.

As a Keynote speaker, Mark regularly delivers events and workshops for organisations around the world. His TEDx talk titled ‘The Doctor of the Future: Prescribing Lifestyle as Medicine’ took place in University College Dublin in 2017. Notable engagements to date have included UCD Smurfit Executive Development, the American House of Representatives and a number of Fortune 500 companies. Mark is among the first medical professionals globally to be certified as a Diplomate of the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine. Lifestyle Medicine is defined as an evidence-based ‘lifestyle first’ approach to prevention and treatment of chronic disease. Mark has always held a strong desire to change the culture of ‘a pill for every ill’. Instead he advocates lifestyle change as the best medicine for lasting wellbeing.

Joe Raphael

Joe Raphael, DrPH, FACLM, MBA, MA, LMFT, CHES, HAPM
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Joe Raphael, DrPH, FACLM, MBA, MA, LMFT, CHES, HAPM, earned his BA and BS from St. Mary’s College, Moraga, his MA in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University Post Doc in Neuropsychology, an MBA in Healthcare Administration from Loma Linda University, and a DrPH Preventive Care Specialty from Loma Linda University. He is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, American College of Lifestyle Medicine fellow, a certified Health Education Specialist, and a board-certified Holistic Alternative Psychology Master.

He has dedicated his career towards purposeful collaborations that transform healthcare. He has supported purposeful collaborations between the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Society of Behavioral Medicine, American College of Healthcare Executives and the American College of Sports Medicine. Dr. Joe is Chair of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine Clinical Practice Management Committee and member of the Happiness Science and Positive Health, Executive, Reimbursement, and Lifestyle Medicine Provider Network Committees.

He began his career in clinical psychology nearly two decades ago focusing predominantly on multi-axis co-occurring patients within inpatient, outpatient, acute, and prison systems working alongside Psychiatry, Endocrinology, Bariatrics, Cardiology, Neurology and Gastroenterology. He is an internationally featured speaker, frequent publisher and featured in syndicated media. His research has been published in major media, medical journals and textbooks. He has held clinical, research, advisor, consultant, and executive roles in health systems, start-ups, software as service and technology, population health, behavioral medicine, and medical clinics. He is an authority in transforming healthcare through operationalizing lifestyle as medicine with positive psychology solutions. He is currently in private practice following a decade of Healthcare Executive roles, consulting with E4 Diabetes Solutions and Switch Healthcare, advising with Wellian, co-leading Lifestyle Medicine Pro, and teaching at Pepperdine University, Graziadio Business School.