Roshi Joan Halifax

Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D. is a Buddhist teacher, Founder and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a social activist, author, and in her early years was an anthropologist at Columbia University and the University of Miami School of Medicine. She is a pioneer in the field of end-of-life care and has lectured on death and dying at academic institutions and medical centers around the world.

She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University, was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress, and received the Pioneer Medal for Outstanding Leadership in Health Care by HealthCare Chaplaincy and an Honorary DSc from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, among many other awards.

From 1972 to 1975, she worked with psychiatrist Stanislav Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center with dying cancer patients. She has continued to work with dying people and their families, and to teach healthcare professionals and family caregivers the psycho-social, ethical and spiritual aspects of care of the dying. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying, Founder of the Upaya Prison Project, and founder of the Nomads Clinic in Nepal. Her books include Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom in the Presence of Death and Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.