Presenter(s)

As an undergraduate at UCLA, Dr. Kristin Neff studied communications, and as a graduate student at UC Berkeley she studied moral development. Her dissertation research on children’s moral reasoning was conducted in Mysore, India. As a post-doctoral researcher at Denver University, she studied issues of authenticity and self- concept development. Dr. Neff is currently an Associate Professor of Human Development and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin.

While doing her post-doctoral work she decided to conduct research on self-compassion – a central construct in Buddhist psychology and one that had not yet been examined empirically. She has a new book titled "Self-Compassion" published by William Morrow in 2011.

Dr. Neff lives in the countryside in Elgin, Texas with her husband Rupert Isaacson – an author and human rights activist – and with her young son Rowan. She and her family were recently featured in the documentary and book called The Horse Boy – www.horseboymovie.com