Jonathan Patz, a UW-Madison researcher on global environmental health, has been to countless conferences, as have most academics. But the meeting Patz will attend this week is like no other. This week, he and a handful of other scientists will sit with the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, at the Tibetan leader?s residence-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, to talk about an issue dear to Patz ? ethics and the environment. Patz is traveling to India with Richard Davidson, the Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, a member of the Mind and Life Institute’s Board of Directors and a friend of Gyatso. Davidson, whose research on meditation and the brain has fascinated Gyatso, has been involved in many of the conferences, which started in 1987 as a way to bring together scientists, philosophers and other thinkers to talk about ethics and current issues of science and research. Most recently a conference explored the subject of “altruism and compassion in economic systems.”
Office of Strategic Communication