Outline for CEBTT 2025-2026

Dr. Eve Ekman is a second-generation emotion researcher, an experienced speaker, researcher, and group facilitator. She brings a unique background ideally suited to training individuals and organizations in the science of happiness, resilience, compassion, mindfulness, and emotional awareness.

She worked for years as a social worker in health care, criminal justice, and social welfare systems. This experience inspired her to earn her master’s and Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and complete her postdoctoral training at UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. During her doctoral studies, she pursued an interdisciplinary approach to research through public health, sociology, education, and psychology. Also, during this time, she took over from her father, the role as one of the lead teachers for the Cultivating Emotional Balance program. Her father, Dr. Paul Ekman, scholar and researcher in the field of emotions, along with Buddhist scholar and teacher, Dr. Alan Wallace developed the Cultivating Emotional Balance program at the request of the Dalai Lama at the conclusion of the 2000 Mind and Life Conference.

Her research has focused on helping professional care providers prevent burnout by teaching them practices to improve their attentional stability, insight, and resilience. Building on her research, she developed trainings to address burnout in national and international organizations and has delivered keynotes and workshops for a wide range of companies, including Airbnb, Salesforce, and Kaiser Permanente. In 2019 Eve participated in the World Economic Forum as a speaker to address compassion and stress.

Eve’s research interest includes technology that fosters emotion regulation and mindfulness, developing a dynamic measurement for empathy, and assessing the impact of provider empathy on the quality of patient care. In addition to her role with CEB, Eve is currently the Director of Training at the University of California Berkeley Greater Good Science Center.

Lani Potts
(Present for second retreat)

As a Dharma practitioner and certified Cultivating Emotional Balance teacher, Lani also brings to CEB her training and experience as a yoga and meditation teacher along with a long-established Buddhist meditation practice. Lani is a recently retired educator with over 38 years of experience as an elementary teacher, principal, teacher and administrator coach, and Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. She is well versed in practical curriculum development, pedagogy, and effective professional development training for educators.

Using one’s heart and mind well represents a major emphasis throughout Lani’s personal life and career. To help manifest her focus on nurturing the social and emotional well-being of children and families, Lani implemented Project Cornerstone, an asset building program committed to helping all children and youth feel valued, respected and known as they grow into healthy, caring, responsible adults. Building a sustainable school climate and culture that is positive, respectful, predictable and safe represents the heart of this work, which includes mindfulness and resiliency. To accomplish this goal, Lani was also instrumental in introducing Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) throughout all the schools in the school districts where she worked.

In her “retirement,” she serves as the Cultivating Emotional Balance Program Director. It is Lani’s aspiration to cultivate connections among the CEB teacher community making both practice and service more powerful.