UC San Diego’s Center for Research on Empathy and Compassion proudly presents the Empathy & Compassion Research Speaker Series for Spring 2026.

This free virtual series highlights the impactful and groundbreaking research that Sanford Institute-affiliated faculty and researchers have played an integral role in. This series is designed for anyone with an interest in empathy and compassion in neurobiology and healthcare.

Why is palatable food so irresistible? Dr. Zhu will describe a neural circuit mechanism in which palatability actively suppresses a hindbrain brake, releasing dopamine signaling that sustains consumption. This moment-by-moment competition between reward and satiety systems explains why highly palatable foods drive overconsumption and why many obesity treatments fail once eating begins. Dr. Zhu will then extend this framework to social contexts, showing how observing others eat recruits the dopamine circuit to trigger socially cued eating, revealing a previously underappreciated social control of eating.

The hosting organization, T. Denny Sanford Institute of Empathy and Compassion, represents an unprecedented blending of two parallel themes: employing the unyielding rigor and tools of science to establish the neurological basis for empathy in the brain to identify the mechanisms that transform compassion from biology to behavior, and experimenting with and developing new ways to teach and instill empathy and compassion in clinicians currently practicing and in the teaching of future generations of health professionals.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

We Want to Be Known: Inclusive Faith Leadership Through Perspective Giving and Getting Rev. Dr. Amanda Henderson trains the next generation of inclusive faith leaders at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO. Her students come from different faith traditions, but as future leaders committed to fostering belonging, they all need the skills to collaborate with the people who serve in local public leadership. That’s where storytelling comes in.

In her immersive summer course, “Inclusive Leadership and Local Politics,” Rev. Dr. Henderson takes a group of graduate students to rural and suburban communities for two weeks, telling stories and listening. Anchored in loving curiosity, the group lives together, disagrees often, and facilitates deep conversations with local leaders about the needs of LGBTQ+ youth in their communities. 

In this interactive skill-sharing session, Rev. Dr. Henderson will share stories and insights from this special immersive course experience. Then Sarah Schnitker, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University, will explore how this particular kind of storytelling–perspective giving and getting–can be an act of character, helping us become the leaders we want to be. 

Join us as we:

• Encounter the research-backed power of perspective giving and getting

• Introduce specific ways to adapt this practice into your work

• Reflect on how the practice shapes character, cultivating empathy and exercising our curiosity, patience, and courage.

Hosted by Juliana Tafur, GGSC’s Bridging Differences Program Director.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

This session explores how the University of Kentucky College of Medicine Office for Organizational Well-Being (OWB) listens deeply to frontline clinicians and transforms that feedback into meaningful, multi-level culture change. Through its Department Enhancement Project (DEP) framework and the Organizational Well-Being Executive Leadership Team (OWBELT) Action Plan, OWB has created intentional structures that surface root issues, elevate frontline perspectives, and translate insights into coordinated department- and system-level improvements. Participants will learn how these interconnected frameworks foster transparency, collaboration, and accountability, and how to adapt similar ground-up approaches to create strategic interventions and accelerate culture change within their own organizations.

UC San Diego’s Center for Compassionate Communication proudly presents the Spring 2026 Compassionate Communication Virtual Workshop Series

This free, skills-based program is specially designed for health care professionals, medical educators, and researchers. Through interactive sessions, participants will learn how to communicate with greater compassion—and, in turn, greater effectiveness—with patients, healthcare teams, medical trainees, and beyond. 

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Women are taking on leadership roles across healthcare at unprecedented rates — yet the path is rarely straightforward. In this Keynotes conversation, Professor Elizabeth Mannix, an expert on leadership and networks, and Professor Sunita Sah, an expert on leadership and negotiations and national bestselling author of “DEFY: The Power of No in a World that Demands Yes,” will share what it takes for women to lead effectively in one of today’s most complex and high‑stakes industries.

Drawing on both research and real‑world experience, Professors Sah and Mannix will explore the capabilities that help women navigate uncertainty, build influence, and drive meaningful change within healthcare organizations.

Whether you are an emerging leader or an experienced professional looking to expand your impact, this session offers practical insights from the upcoming Women in Healthcare Leadership certificate program.

What You'll Learn

• Why healthcare needs more women leaders in both clinical and non-clinical roles, and the unique strengths they bring

• How authenticity helps leaders build trust, credibility, and influence

• Practical strategies for negotiating effectively for resources, roles, and opportunities

• Why strong professional networks and relationships are essential for leadership success

• How to stand up and speak up with confidence in high-stakes conversations

• What it means to lead with courage and build resilience in complex and rapidly changing healthcare environments

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

What does it take to foster belonging and community impact in one of the most competitive, high-pressure industries in the world: professional sports?

Join us for a live conversation featuring:

• Dr. Kara Allen, architect of the NBA’s first Chief People, Impact and Belonging Officer role and former executive leader with the San Antonio Spurs

• Dr. Hooria Jazaieri, award-winning professor and researcher, lead author of the case study Leading Social Impact from the NBA C-Suite

• Kia Afcari, Director of Greater Good Workplaces at the Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley

Drawing from Dr. Allen’s experience with the San Antonio Spurs, we’ll explore her fascinating journey designing and leading the first Chief People, Impact and Belonging function in all of professional sports. Dr. Allen will share how, in the wake of the Uvalde Elementary School shooting and other societal pressures, she and her team helped the Spurs prioritize community and societal impact as an equal and interrelated goal alongside building a championship-caliber team and ensuring financial strength. We will also highlight Dr. Allen’s values-based leadership philosophy, grounded in compassion, belonging, authenticity, and her belief that business success is inextricably linked to societal well-being.

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

• How leaders build trust and psychological safety without sacrificing performance

• Why people thrive when they feel a genuine sense of belonging at work

• How sustained excellence depends on a strong organizational culture that holds under internal and external pressure

• What organizations in any sector can learn about the link between financial success and community impact

This conversation goes far beyond the court. It is designed for business leaders, managers, culture-builders, and anyone interested in science-backed strategies for creating communities where people can thrive, even in moments of conflict and change. Few leaders choose to embed belonging and social impact at the core of a major sports franchise. Even fewer have done it under public scrutiny and competitive pressure. Leave this conversation motivated with practical insights you can immediately modify to fit your team, your organization, and your community.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

High levels of non–face-to-face work are a well-recognized contributor to clinician burnout, and reducing this burden has become a priority across health systems. Yet accurately assessing this time requires a nuanced understanding of real-world clinician workflows. This talk will present a pilot project designed to refine EMR-based measurement of non–face-to-face workload in academic internal medicine, with the goal of informing better strategies to quantify and ultimately mitigate this contributor to burnout.

UC San Diego’s Center for Research on Empathy and Compassion proudly presents the Empathy & Compassion Research Speaker Series for Spring 2026.

This free virtual series highlights the impactful and groundbreaking research that Sanford Institute-affiliated faculty and researchers have played an integral role in. This series is designed for anyone with an interest in empathy and compassion in neurobiology and healthcare.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Self-leadership is essential to personal wellbeing and leadership effectiveness - whether you are called to be a responsive leader in your workplace, community, or family. At the Bakken Center, we describe self-leadership as an intentional alignment between your values and your daily actions and behaviors that can lead to enhanced personal wellbeing and effectiveness in all areas of life. At its core, it involves increasing our capacity for self-awareness, self-care, emotional resilience, and self-efficacy. It also acknowledges the powerful ripple effect that self-leadership and good self-care can have on our relationships with others, whether at work, at home, or in our larger communities.

This session will include a deep dive into the concept of self-leadership and building your personal wellbeing, resilience and self-leadership competencies, from the inside out. The Bakken Center’s Wellbeing Model will be explored, especially as it pertains to the everyday stressors and gifts unique to leadership.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

In this conversation with two very wise beings – the teacher Tara Brach and the scholar Paul Gilbert – we will explore both our very human vulnerabilities to divisiveness, callousness, and cruelty . . . and our capacities for empathy and compassion. In particular, we will explore the moral intelligence in compassion and the courage it can bring to relieve suffering. We’ll include practical ways to release the tendency toward “bad-othering,” to recognize suffering in those we oppose, and to stay grounded in the heart while dealing with conflicts. There will be some experiential practice, and opportunities to raise questions.

Meet Our Speakers

Paul Gilbert, PhD, OBE is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby. He was Consultant Clinical Psychologist at NHS for over 40 years. He is the founder of Compassion focused Therapy and Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He has written/edited 23 books and over 300 papers and book chapters. In 2006 he established the Compassionate Mind Foundation as an international charity with the mission statement: To promote wellbeing through the scientific understanding and application of compassion (www.compassionatemind.co.uk). He was awarded an OBE by the Queen in March 2011 for services to mental health. He established and is the Director of the Centre for Compassion Research and Training at Derby University UK.

Tara Brach, Ph.D. is a spiritual teacher, psychologist and author of several books including international bestselling Radical Acceptance, Radical Compassion and Trusting the Gold. Her teaching blends Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a dedication to creating a more just, equitable and loving world. Tara is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington and, together with Jack Kornfield, has co-founded Banyan and the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program, which serves participants from 74 countries around the world.

Chair – Rick Hanson, PhD is a psychologist, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times best-selling author. His seven books have been published in 33 languages, and include Making Great Relationships, Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Just One Thing, Buddha’s Brain, and Mother Nurture – with over a million copies in English alone. He’s the founder of the Global Compassion Coalition and the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, as well as the co-host of the Being Well Podcast – which has been downloaded over 25 million times. He’s lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard.

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.

Social psychologist and leadership expert Adam Galinsky has spent three decades building a method for determining when we are inspiring versus infuriating, and where each of us—presidents, CEOs, coaches, teachers, parents—currently land on that spectrum. In this talk, Galinsky will unpack the science of inspiration and show how inspiring and infuriating leaders represent a universal continuum that is rooted in the very architecture of the human brain. In his research, Galinsky has identified the three universal features in inspiring others. Because these three universal factors can be learned and developed, Galinsky has proven that inspiring leaders aren’t just born—instead, we can inspire or infuriate in any given moment through our behavior, words, or presence. Galinsky will reveal how all of us, regardless of status or circumstance, can be more inspiring more often.

About Galinsky:

Adam Galinsky is the Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School. A world-renowned expert in leadership and negotiation, he authored the recently released INSPIRE: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others and co-authored the bestselling book, Friend & Foe. His books are based in over 300 scientific articles and chapters he has co-authored. His TED Talk, How to Speak Up for Yourself, has over 7.7 million views, highlighting his impact on influence and inspiration. Professor Galinsky has served as a damages expert in a dozen trials involving reputational damage, including Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News and Bacon v. Nygard. His expert reports and testimony have generated more than $1 billion in verdicts and settlements. He is an Executive and Associate Producer on six award-winning documentaries, including two (Horns and Halos (2003) and Battle for Brooklyn (2011)) that were short-listed (final 15) for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. He received his PhD from Princeton University and his BA from Harvard University.

The Positive Links Speaker Series, presented by Michigan Ross’ Center for Positive Organizations, offers inspiring and practical science-based strategies to build and bolster thriving organizations. Attendees learn from leading positive organizational scholars and connect with our community of academics, students, staff, and leaders. 

Hosted by Monica Worline, Faculty Director, Center for Positive Organizations. 

Register here for this free online event. Please note, this event has been standardized to the Eastern Time Zone.