Jonathan Schooler, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara and Director of UCSB’s Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential. His research explores topics that intersect philosophy and psychology, including the relationship between mindfulness and mind-wandering, theories of consciousness, and the potential role of subjective experience in reality.

A former holder of a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, Jonathan is a fellow of several psychology societies and the recipient of numerous grants from the United States and Canadian governments and private foundations. His research has been featured on television shows including BBC Horizon and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, as well as in print media including the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Nature Magazine. With over 250 publications and nearly 40,000 citations he has been the recipient of the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science™  Highly Cited Researcher Award for five of the last six years.

Amanda Gregory is an opera singer, sound artist, composer, and researcher exploring the nature of reality through the lens of music. Gregory’s background includes a masters in music from Manhattan School of Music, and an international career in both traditional and contemporary classical music, specializing in works that probe the relationship between math and music. She is currently a remote resident at the Santa Barbara Center for Arts, Science, and Technology and a Research Specialist at UCSB’s META lab.

Amanda is developing immersive audiovisual experiences that integrate elemental sounds and frequencies of nature with live-generated psychoacoustic vocals with the goal of encouraging listeners to explore varied dimensions of consciousness. Her projects have been featured at the Contemporary Arts Museum (Houston), Lincoln Center, Google Launchpad, SWSW, the Global Energy Conference, NeuroLeadership Summit, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Science Meeting, Adobe’s Festival of the Impossible, Oculus Rift VR, Obscura Digital, The Awakened Futures Summit, Google IO conference, The Science of Consciousness Conference, The Upaya Zen Center’s Annual Varela Symposium, and the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute.