AMANDA GILBERT is a professor of mindfulness at the University of Southern California, a meditation teacher, speaker, author. She has been a meditator for over 17 years and now leads meditation for top companies like NBC, Paramount Pictures, The W Hotels, Merrill Lynch, Macy's and YouTube. Before dedicating herself to teaching full-time, Amanda was Center Director for The Aging Metabolism and Emotions Center at the University of California San Francisco, conducting scientific research and publishing investigations on the biological and psychological effects of mindfulness and meditation. She is now an emerging expert in the field of teaching meditation, mindfulness, and the contemplative sciences. Her formal meditation training has been with UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center, in Primordial Sound Meditation with Deepak Chopra, and the Insight Meditation tradition.