Meet Our Board

​​Before opening his own practice in 2009, Jack Brant was a director in the Albuquerque office of Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, P.A. for some 20 years. He practices in the areas of attorney and accountant professional liability, legal ethics and disciplinary consulting and representation, insurance coverage and bad faith litigation, law firm joinder and break ups, law practice management, attorney fee disputes and general civil litigation including representation of real estate brokers and design professionals. 

Jack graduated first in his law school class and was elected a member of the Order of the Coif. From 1983 to 1985, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Howard C. Bratton, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. 

Prior to joining the Rodey firm in 1987, Jack was an associate with the firm of Crowell & Moring in Washington, D.C., where he practiced general civil litigation including products liability and insurance defence. Jack has completed both the Karuna Basic Training and Karuna Graduate Training in contemplative psychology.

Carolyn Larson-Garcia holds a Doctor of Management degree, a Master of Business Administration with a focus on marketing, and an associate of Arts in Business Administration. Carolynn teaches business courses and business strategy at various universities. She has held multiple positions with increasing levels of responsibility culminating in the role of CEO for over ten years with Aegis Electronic Group, Inc., from which she retired in 2021. Dr. Larson-Garcia's business experience highlights 35 years of management experience, offering strategic consulting services on a limited basis for various organizations.

Carolyn continues to seek opportunities to prepare research on mindfulness and managerial decision-making, presenting findings at the Academy of Management Conference (AOM 2018). Carolynn's work includes a textbook publication of a case study on organizational leadership and behavior.

In her retirement, Carolynn is still teaching and has volunteered as the Director of San Diego Shambhala for several years. She completed the Karuna Albuquerque Graduate Training in May 2022.

Adam Lobel, Ph.D. (Harvard University), is practitioner-scholar of philosophy and religion, practicing at the intersection of ecologies, Buddhist meditation, contemporary theory, and political transformation. He is a professor of Ecopsychology and Buddhist psychology, engaged in cultural-therapeutics for a transforming civilization. 

Adam is a Guiding Teacher  for OneEarth Sangha, a GreenFaith fellow, is active in environmental justice movements and leads EcoDharma workshops, bearing witness to ecological loss. He served as a teacher (acharya) in the Shambhala tradition from 2005 until resigning in 2018.

Adam’s teachings focus on Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhism, modern phenomenology, and inoperative studies. He is currently developing what he calls “four fields” of a contemplative ecosystem. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his partner and two children where he protects land from the petrochemical industry as much as possible.

​​Jessica earned a PhD from Emory University in Philosophy and is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland, where she teaches courses on Asian philosophies, ethics, critical thinking, and social justice.

Her specialty as a critical cross-cultural researcher is in synthesizing tools and concepts from diverse contemplative practices and academic disciplines and demonstrating how they can be used to advance individual growth and social well-being. 

She has teaching experience with a wide variety of audiences, ranging from university students to incarcerated adults to Tibetan Buddhist monks.

Outside of academia, she has taught contemplative disciplines such as yoga and meditation as well as experiential workshops on social justice since 2007.

Melissa Moore Ph.D. Steward of the North American Karuna training since 2014, and co-founded Karuna Europe in 1996. Melissa has her MA in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and her Ph.D. in Psychological Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Melissa has been a student of Vajrayana Buddhism and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche since 1979. She was the founding Director of the Felton Institute for Research and Training in San Francisco (2006–2016). She has been involved in community-based research for the most marginalized populations in California, trained front-line providers in mental health in evidence-based practices, and then researched the outcomes. Melissa is the Executive Director of Karuna Training and a lead faculty. She has taught Karuna Training in nine countries and in four states in the U.S. She lives in Denver with her dog and husband.

Melissa recently published The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity Through Contemplative Psychology; find out more about the book
here: https://thediamondswithinus.org.

Mairead is a somatic therapist with a dual Master's Degree in Mental Health Counseling and Dance/Movement Therapy from Naropa University. Mairead is the founder and lead therapist of The Rise Wellness Center, a mental health center that offers individual and group therapy in Colorado.

She utilizes the body and mindfulness in her therapeutic work while taking a trauma-informed approach. Mairead has also been a staff member with Karuna Training since 2020 and currently serves as the Operations Manager and the Secretary of the board.

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