Clifford Saron, PhD, is a Research Scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain and MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis. He received his PhD in neuroscience from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1999. Dr. Saron has had a long-standing interest in the effects of contemplative practice on physiology and behavior. In the early 1990s, he conducted field research investigating Tibetan Buddhist mind training under the auspices of the Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama. A faculty member at Mind and Life Summer Research Institutes in the US and Europe, he received the inaugural Mind and Life Service Award in 2018.

Dr. Saron directs the Shamatha Project, a multidisciplinary longitudinal investigation of intensive meditation on physiological and psychological processes central to well-being. In 2012, Dr. Saron and his research team were awarded the inaugural Templeton Prize Research Grant in honor of H.H. the Dalai Lama. Currently, his team is investigating how meditation experience may mitigate the effects of the pandemic on chronic stress and cellular aging, as well as examining consequences of compassion vs. mindfulness training on engagement with suffering. His other research area focuses on sensory processing in children with autism spectrum disorders.