Stephen W. Porges, PhD, is a Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University where he is founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He served as president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences and is a former recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development Award. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers across several disciplines including anesthesiology, biomedical engineering, critical care medicine, ergonomics, exercise physiology, gerontology, neurology, neuroscience, obstetrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, psychometrics, space medicine, and substance abuse. In 1994, he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric and physical disorders. He is the author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation (Norton, 2011), The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe (Norton, 2017), and co-editor of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies (Norton, 2018). He is the creator of a music-based intervention, the Safe and Sound Protocol™, which currently is used by more than 1400 therapists to improve spontaneous social engagement, to reduce hearing sensitivities, to improve language processing and for state regulation.

Reuben Jonathan Miller is a sociologist, criminologist, and social worker examining the long-term consequences of incarceration on the lives of individuals and their families, with a focus on communities of color and those living in poverty. His scholarship addresses many aspects of life in the age of mass incarceration and supervision, spanning policing, trauma, and prisoner re-entry programs. He explores the aftermath of imprisonment in particular depth and writes about this subject from a place of proximity.

J.W. Freiberg holds a Ph.D. from UCLA and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. This double training enabled Dr. Freiberg to serve for over thirty years as General Counsel to Boston’s principal children’s social service and adoption agencies, and as attorney to scores of private mental health clinics. As the decades passed, Dr. Freiberg recognized that the psychiatrists and psychologists who sought his advice were increasingly likely to describe their patients as socially isolated and painfully lonely. Freiberg, who has been called “the Oliver Sacks of law” by America’s most famous psychiatrist, Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., shares stories of these spell-binding cases with us in three books which each won awards for “Best Book of the Year in Psychiatry/Psychology.” Four Seasons of Loneliness: A Lawyer’s Case Stories appeared in 2016; Growing Up Lonely: Disconnection and Misconnection in the Lives of Our Children was published in 2019; and Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone followed in 2020. Dr. Freiberg has been interviewed on NPR and scores of podcasts, with over seventy of these being accessible on his website, thelonelinessbooks.com. Each year Dr. Freiberg lectures on the topic of chronic loneliness at the Trauma Research Foundation; this May at the 36th Annual Conference of the foundation, his talk will bear the title: “Loneliness: its Evolutionary Purpose, Neurological Genesis, and Clinical Analysis.”

Judith Lewis Herman, M.D. is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, as well as the Director of Training at the Victims of Violence Program at Cambridge Hospital. She earned her MD from Harvard Medical School and has written books including Father-Daughter Incest and Trauma and Recovery. Her honors and distinctions include a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, a Bunting Institute fellowship at Radcliffe, a Manfred S. Guttmacher Award from the American Psychiatric Association and American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, and a Women in Science Award from the American Medical Women’s Association.

Co-founder of Trauma Research Foundation, Licia Sky guides transformational experiences by incorporating dynamic observational exercises to foster safe, transformative inner and interpersonal connections. Her methods are informed by over 25 years as an artist, musician, bodywork therapist, yoga practitioner, and dancer; and integrate poly-vagal theory, parts work, and the latest research on trauma and the body.

Denise Hien, PhD, ABPP, is Senior Vice Provost of Research, Director and Helen E. Chaney Endowed Chair in Alcohol Studies at the Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies, and Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ. Considered a leader in the field for over 30 years, her body of research has contributed to the evidence base on treatment of individuals with trauma-related psychiatric disorders and substance addictions, through conducting clinical trials in community-based substance use treatment settings. She is board-certified in clinical psychology, serving on numerous national scientific advisory boards. Among many honors, in 2023 she was given the Inaugural Mary Jean Kreek Award for Underserved Populations from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.

Zindel V. Segal, Ph.D., C.Psych, is a clinical psychologist whose research examines the use of mindfulness meditation in promoting affect regulation skills in people suffering from a depressive and anxiety based disorder. His research program has two broad thrusts involving 1) the use of brain imaging to identify neural markers of depressive relapse or resilience associated with long-term practice of mindfulness meditation and 2) evaluating the efficacy of mindfulness-based clinical interventions delivered via online or mobile platforms as a means of increasing access to care.

Manos Tsakiris is Professor of Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London where I direct the Lab of Action & Body. From 2021, he is the Director of the interdisciplinary Centre for the Politics of Feelings. He studied psychology (BSc, Panteion University Athens, 1995-1999), philosophy (MSc in Philosophy of Mental Disorder, King’s College, London, 1999-2000), and cognitive neuropsychology (MSc, UCL, 2000-2001) before completing his PhD (2006) in psychology and cognitive neurosciences at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL. In 2007, he joined the Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, where he is currently Professor of Psychology. Between 2009 and 2015, he led the Plastic Self ERC Starting Grant project. Between 2016 and 2020, he led the interdisciplinary Body & Image in Arts & Science (BIAS) project at the Warburg Institute, and since 2017 the INtheSELF ERC Consolidator project at the Lab of Action & Body at Royal Holloway. He is fortunate and grateful to have received the Young Mind and Brain Prize in 2014, of the 22nd Experimental Psychology Society Prize in 2015, and the NOMIS Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award in 2016. The research at his lab is highly interdisciplinary and focuses on how bodily and feeling states influence our self-awareness and socio-political behaviour.

Mike Niconchuk is a researcher and practitioner at the intersection of psychological trauma recovery, migration, and peacebuilding. Trained in security studies, international relations, and social cognition, Michael has worked for more than a decade in West and Central Asia to support community and government efforts to provide evidence-based care for persons affected by violent conflict, extremism, and displacement. Specifically, he has been heavily involved with programs for Syrian communities around the world as well as the return and rehabilitation of the families of foreign extremist fighters in Iraq and Syria. He is the co-founder of Salama, a nonprofit initiative that focuses on the inner safety of war-affected communities, and is the author of numerous publications on trauma healing in humanitarian and conflict settings, identity-based violence, and migration.

Co-founder of The Gottman Institute and Affective Software, Inc., Dr Schwartz Gottman is co-creator of Loving Couples Loving Children – a curriculum for couples struggling with poverty, co-creator of the immensely popular Art & Science of Love weekend workshops for couples, and co-designed the national clinical training program in Gottman Couples Therapy. A highly respected licensed clinical psychologist and educator, she is sought internationally as an expert advisor on marriage, the treatment of trauma and affairs, sexual harassment and rape, domestic violence, same-sex marriage, and gay and lesbian parenting. Media appearances have included Good Morning America, the TODAY Show, and the TED Mainstage, as well as The Atlantic, The Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, Inc., The New York Times, TIME, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal among many others.

Dr. Schwartz Gottman has been honored as the Washington State Psychologist of the Year and is the recipient of the Psychotherapy Networker Lifetime Achievement Award. She is author or co-author of many books, including best-sellers Fight Right, The Love Prescription, and Eight Dates, as well as The New Marriage Clinic, and The Marriage Clinic Casebook, Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage, The Man’s Guide To Women, and And Baby Makes Three. Dr. Schwartz Gottman has received wide recognition for her clinical psychotherapy treatment, with specialization in distressed couples, abuse and trauma survivors, substance abusers and their partners, and cancer patients and their families.

World-renowned for his work on marital stability and divorce prediction, John Gottman has conducted 50 years of breakthrough research with thousands of couples. In addition to being named one of Psychotherapy Networker’s Top 10 Most Influential Therapists of the past quarter-century, his work on marriage and parenting has earned him numerous major awards, including:

• Four National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Awards
• The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Distinguished Research Scientist Award
• The American Family Therapy Academy Award for Most Distinguished Contributor to Family Systems Research
• The American Psychological Association Division of Family Psychology, Presidential Citation for Outstanding Lifetime Research Contribution
• The National Council of Family Relations, 1994 Burgess Award for Outstanding Career in Theory and Research
• Psychotherapy Networker Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr. Gottman is the author or co-author of over 250 published academic articles and more than 50 books, including best-sellers Fight Right, The Love Prescription, and Eight Dates, and The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, as well as The New Marriage Clinic, What Makes Love Last, The Science of Trust, The Relationship Cure, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, and Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child. his media appearances include CBS Morning News, Good Morning America, Oprah, TED Mainstage and The TODAY Show, as well The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, Inc., The New York Times, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, People, Psychology Today, Reader’s Digest, and Vanity Fair.

Co-founder of The Gottman Institute and co-founder of Affective Software, Inc. with his wife, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman, John was also the Executive Director of the Relationship Research Institute. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Washington, where he founded “The Love Lab” at which much of his research on couples’ interactions was conducted. To read more about Dr. Gottman’s research, check out this page for interesting questions and citations to his work.

Edward Tronick, PhD, is a developmental and clinical psychologist and is recognized internationally as a researcher on infants, children, and parenting. He developed the Face-to-Face Still-Face Paradigm and videotaped micro-analytic studies of infant en face interactions, pioneered studies of the effects of maternal depression on infants, and carried out numerous cross-cultural studies of infant and child development. His Mutual Regulation Model and Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness hypothesis are widely accepted accounts of social interactions and therapeutic processes. Dr. Tronick is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, is director of the Child Development Unit, a research associate in Newborn Medicine, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, an associate professor at both the Graduate School of Education and the School of Public Health at Harvard.

Ruth Cohn, MFT, is a psychotherapist living and practicing in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been specializing in work with survivors of trauma and neglect, their intimate partners, and families since 1988. She is a Certified Sex Therapist, certified in Neurofeedback, EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and Imago Relationship Therapy. Ruth is also the author of numerous articles on sexuality, trauma, and neglect and three books: Working With the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice, Coming Home to Passion: Restoring Loving Sexuality in Couples With Histories of Childhood Trauma, and Neglect, and Out of My Mind: Late Night Contemplations About Trauma and Neglect.