Hypnosis and meditation

Professor Raz earned his Ph.D. in Brain Science from the Interdisciplinary Center for Computational Neuroscience at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of the late Professor Shlomo Bentin. He then went on to a post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Michael Posner at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where he took on a faculty position thereafter. He then joined the faculty at Columbia University in the City of New York and later became the Canada Research Chair at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Michael is a doctoral student investigating the science of contemplative experience in the Raz Lab at McGill University. His research centers on comparing approaches to the transformation of consciousness - ranging from meditation to hypnosis, placebos, and psychedelics. Working from the vantage of neurophenomenology, Michael aims to synthesize knowledge of various contemplative practices to advance the science of attention, consciousness, and meta-cognition. Michael's work is supported through a Vanier Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and a Mind & Life Institute Francisco J. Varela Research Award. He completed a master's degree in the Integrated Program of Neuroscience at the Raz Lab, and an undergraduate degree with honors in psychology and minors in philosophy and world religions - both at McGill University.