Terry Lavender attended a four-day Cultivating Leadership Presence through Mindfulness retreat offered by the Institute for Mindful Leadership, Sept. 14-18, 2011. The retreat included training in walking and sitting meditation, silent meditation, and cultivating presence. He will be incorporating what he learned both in his daily life and his research with the pain group.

Meehae Song attended a 6 day Mindfulness Retreat with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn and the monks and nuns at Deer Park Monastery in Escondido, CA. She practiced sitting and walking meditation daily starting at 5:30AM and also attended sessions for deep relaxation and community working meditation. Mindfulness starts with each breath and she is trying to bring this into her daily life and as she works with leading chronic pain workshops and develops VR applications for chronic pain.

PhD Student and research member, Tyler Fox, presented his paper Material Possthumanism: (Re)Configurations of Practice at Virtual Futures 2.0, a revival of the cult conference in the UK. Featuring members from the original Virtual Futures, such as performance artist Stelarc, science fiction author Pat Cadigan, and computer scientist Kevin Warwick, the conference focused on how digital technologies impact our lives and shape our futures, as well as what has turned out differently from the expectations from the original Virtual Futures conferences in the mid-90s. Tylers paper focused on the intersections of bioart and science and was part of the Future Concerns of Bio-Technology panel.