Susan Bauer-Wu is the president of the Mind & Life Institute. She is an accomplished scholar and researcher who has studied and applied contemplative practices in health care and higher education, building on her clinical experience as a nurse and her mindfulness meditation practice and teaching.
Bauer-Wu has a long history with Mind & Life as a fellow, a grant reviewer, a presenter, and a Research Advisory Council member. Before becoming president, she was the director of the Compassionate Care Initiative and the Tussi and John Kluge Professor in Contemplative End-of-Life Care at the University of Virginia (UVa) School of Nursing, associate faculty in the UVa Department of Religious Studies, and on the executive committee of the pan-university UVa Contemplative Sciences Center. She was formerly the Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar and associate professor of nursing at Emory University, where she co-created the Emory Collaborative for Contemplative Studies.