Richard Davidson

His most recent book, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body, was co-authored with friend and colleague Daniel Goleman and released in September 2017.

Davidson has been a longtime friend of the 14th Dalai Lama, and some of his work involves research on the brain as it relates to meditation. Davidson has long maintained his own daily meditation practice, and continues to communicate regularly with the Dalai Lama.

He has written a New York Times bestseller (with Sharon Begley) titled The Emotional Life of Your Brain, published by Penguin in March 2012.

A documentary film about the work of Davidson called "Free The Mind", directed by Phie Ambo, was released in 2012.

Time magazine named Dr. Davidson one of the world's top 100 most influential people in a 2006 issue.

This connection has caused controversy, with some scientists criticizing Davidson for being too close to someone with an interest in the outcome of his research and others claiming that it represents an inappropriate mix of faith and science. When he invited the Dalai Lama to participate in the "Neuroscience and Society" program of the Society for Neuroscience meeting in 2005, over 500 researchers signed a petition in protest. Some of the petitioners were Chinese researchers, who may disagree politically with the Dalai Lama's stance on Tibet. The controversy subsided quickly after most scientists attending the talk found it appropriate.

Davidson has published many papers, chapter articles and edited 13 books. In 2001 he was the founding co-editor, with Klaus Scherer, of the American Psychological Association journal Emotion.

In 2000, Davidson received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, for lifetime achievement from the American Psychological Association.

Richard Davidson and his collaborators have used rhesus monkeys as models of human neurophysiology and emotional response since 1992 when he and fellow UW–Madison researchers Ned H. Kalin and Steven E. Shelton published “Lateralized effects of diazepam on frontal brain electrical asymmetries in rhesus monkeys.” In 2004 the same group published further results on the role of the central nucleus of the amygdala in mediating fear and anxiety in the primate. In 2007, Drs Kalin, Shelton & Davidson reported that experimental lesions of adolescent rhesus monkeys' orbitofrontal cortex resulted in "significantly decreased threat-induced freezing and marginally decreased fearful responses to a snake."

In 1984 he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he has since remained. He previously served as the director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience and of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior. He is founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds.

In 1976 Davidson took a teaching post at the State University of New York at Purchase where he subsequently held several posts including research consultancies at the Department of Pediatrics, Infant Laboratory, Roosevelt Hospital, New York and the Laboratory of Neurosciences, National Institute on Aging, NIH.

Davidson went on to receive his B.A. in Psychology from NYU (Heights) in 1972. He chose to study at Harvard University to work with Daniel Goleman and Gary Schwartz and gained his Ph.D. in Personality, Psychopathology, and Psychophysiology there in 1976. At Harvard, Davidson was mentored by David C. McClelland and was also influenced by Norman Geschwind and Walle J. H. Nauta.

Born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, Richard "Richie" Davidson attended Midwood High School. While there, between 1968–1971, he worked as a summer research assistant in the sleep laboratory at nearby Maimonides Medical Center cleaning electrodes that had been affixed to subjects' bodies for sleep studies.

Richard J. Davidson (born December 12, 1951) is professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as well as founder and chair of the Center for Healthy Minds.