Joan received her PhD in medical anthropology from Union
Graduate School in 1973. Her various academic honors include
receiving a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual
Anthropology (1972), and appointment as an Honorary Research
Fellow at Harvard University's Peabody Museum (1981). Her
academic teaching credentials include being on the faculty of
Columbia University, the University of Miami School of Medicine,
the New School for Social Research. She has done
anthropological field work in Africa, Central America, and in the
hospital system of the United States. She also was a research
fellow at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, founded the
Ojai Foundation (1979), the Upaya Zen Center & Institute (1990),
the Upaya Prison Project (1996), the Project on Being with Dying
(1996). She has taught compassionate End-of-Life Care in
medical schools and hospitals. Joan is a Zen Buddhist roshi,
anthropologist, human rights activist, and the author of books on
end-of-care and Buddhism and serves on the Board of Directors
of the Mind & Life Institute.
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