As the School of Public Health invests in mindfulness teaching, both for the MPH concentration in mindfulness as well as the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher-Training program, it is critical to have faculty that are pedagogically highly skilled in MBSR teacher training and the fundamental elements of MBSR. This in turn informs the research of MBSR and mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) that are occurring at the Mindfulness Center and at Brown. As a result, researchers at Brown have well-crafted mindfulness-based programs to test, taught by some of the most skilled mindfulness instructors in the country. Lynn Koerbel, MPH, is fundamental to this work. 

Prof. Koerbel upholds the highest standards of rigor not only for the MBSR curriculum, which she co-authored and that is used worldwide, but she is also a leading thinker on the quantitative and qualitative assessment of MBSR teachers in training using the Mindfulness-Based Intervention Teacher Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC) method. The MBI-TAC was originally developed at Oxford University and Bangor University in the United Kingdom, and is the most respected evidence-informed assessment of MBP teacher competencies at this time. Prof. Koerbel has co-authored several peer-reviewed publications on MBP teacher effectiveness. Major topics in her peer-reviewed publications include the development of international guidelines for integrity for MBP teachers and trainers; current best practices in implementing the MBI:TAC in MBP teacher training; a handbook on giving feedback for teacher development and assessment using the MBI:TAC; and outcomes of inter-rater reliability on using the MBI:TAC to assess teaching competency. These topics are critical to establishing consistent international standards for MBP teachers and training centers. Prof. Koerbel is recognized as the senior trainer of the MBI-TAC usage in the United States, and she receives contracts from other universities to assess their teachers, along with providing that service to the Mindfulness Center at Brown which is one of the most active trainers of MBSR teachers in the United States, and the world.

At Brown, Prof. Koerbel is co-developer of the MBP teacher-training pathway that is currently being explored as a way to expand training options in the field beyond just MBSR teacher training, which have been currently focusing on. She teaches and mentors an international network of MBP teacher-trainers, supporting new research evidence, protocols, and pedagogy. An important element of Prof. Koerbel’s work is in the development of the next generation of MBP teachers, especially the needs of underserved and underrepresented populations, including active recruiting of appropriate candidates, and supporting their growth and trajectory to become MBP teachers and trainers.

Given her decades of experience in the field, and her leading the development MBSR curricula, teachers-in-training, and her scholarship on the evaluation of MBSR teacher quality, it is a delight to welcome Prof. Koerbel as Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Brown University School of Public Health.