Anne-Marie is a graduate student at the Center for Healthy Minds working at the intersection of contemplative science, neuroscience, and psychology. Her research explores how meditation-based practices can be better tailored to support people experiencing severe psychological distress, including suicidal thoughts and behaviors. This work is shaped by her lived experience with cancer, where tailored meditation training was a means to alleviate severe physical and psychological distress through transformation. This experience strengthened her resolve as an emerging scholar, that tailored meditation training can foster great transformation amidst adversity.
She studies how different forms of mindful awareness and loving-kindness practice influence attention, emotion, and neuroplasticity. She is interested in the diverse practices across contemplative traditions and the distinct ways they may support wellbeing. She also examines trainable skills that may help people deconstruct rigid patterns of self-identification. Her long-term goal is to contribute to building personalized, psychologically and biologically-informed contemplative interventions.