Kristin Neff earned her Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of California at Berkeley, studying moral development. She is currently an Associate Professor in Human Development at the University of Texas at Austin.

During Neff’s last year of graduate school, she became interested in Buddhism, and has been practicing meditation in the Insight tradition ever since. While doing her post-doctoral work, she decided to conduct research on self-compassion — a central construct in Buddhist psychology and one that had not yet been examined empirically.

In addition to her pioneering research into self-compassion, she has developed an 8-week program to teach self-compassion skills. The program, co-created with her colleague Chris Germer at Harvard University, is called Mindful Self-Compassion.

Kristin lives in Elgin, Texas with her husband Rupert Isaacson — an author and human rights activist — and their son Rowan. The family was recently featured in the documentary and best-selling book, The Horse Boy — www.horseboymovie.com — which chronicles their journey with autism.