Mark Miller, PhD, is a cognitive scientist, contemplative researcher, and meditation teacher. His work explores how emerging ideas in the mind sciences can deepen our understanding of happiness, well-being, and what it means to live well in an increasingly technologically mediated world.

Mark is a researcher at Monash University’s Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies and is cross-affiliated with the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto and the Centre for Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience at Hokkaido University. He is also Lab Manager of John Vervaeke’s Consciousness and Wisdom Studies Lab at the University of Toronto, where he teaches cognitive science.

Drawing on cutting-edge computational neuroscience, his work explores meditation, emotion, selfhood, and human flourishing — not only how contemplative practices change the mind and brain, but what they might reveal about consciousness and the nature of the self.

Mark currently co-leads a research program exploring the neuroscience of advanced meditation, from the deep absorptive states of jhāna to dark retreat and near-death-like experiences. He has practiced meditation for more than 25 years, including periods of intensive retreat throughout South and Southeast Asia, and has taught contemplative practice for more than a decade.