Tammi Kral
Tammi Kral, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
Tammi Kral, Ph.D. is a senior scientist exploring scalable measures and mobile experiences for mental health. She enjoys translating difficult-to-measure emotive, behavioral, and psychological characteristics into quantitative models, and communicating scientific findings to a broad audience of academic, business, and community stakeholders. At Healthy Minds Innovations, Dr. Kral has developed expertise translating academic insights to applied research in education, nonprofit, healthcare, and corporate sectors in partnership with clients and external collaborators. She has been the scientific lead in developing and validating prosocial video games and mobile measures of wellbeing. In her work in product development, Dr. Kral is using data science to inform personalization of wellbeing training that centers user experience to maximize engagement and impact.
Dr. Kral is a senior scientist with expertise in neuroscience and wellbeing, and over 18 published manuscripts in peer-reviewed, scientific journals. She earned her doctorate in Contemplative Neuroscience under the mentorship of Dr. Richard Davidson, through which she contributed groundbreaking research on the impact of mindfulness meditation on the brain. Her work has been featured in popular media, including Neftlix’ Explained series and To the Best of Our Knowledge. Dr. Kral’s research has explored the neural, behavioral, and cognitive mechanisms underlying emotion, empathy, and the impact of contemplative and cognitive training–from formal meditation, to apps and video games. Her research asks–how can contemplative and behavioral training effectively target these mechanisms to improve wellbeing and to foster inclusive, compassionate communities?
Outside of research, Dr. Kral enjoys hiking and biking with her family, live music, and travel. You might find her volunteering for civil rights organizations, or capturing portraits and events in her occasional role as a professional photographer.
Education
- PhD, Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison
- MS, Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison
- BS, Neurobiology & Psychology, University of Wisconsin –Madison
- Advanced Neuroimaging Training Program, University of California –Los Angeles
- Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python, Rice University
Selected Scientific Articles:
- Kral, T.R.A., Kesebir, P., Redford, L., Dahl, C., Wilson-Mendenhal, C., Hirshberg, M.J., Davidson, R.J., Tatar, R. (2024). Healthy Minds Index: A brief measure of the core dimensions of wellbeing. PLoS One, May 10;19(5):e0299352. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299352.
- Kral, T.R.A., Weng, H., Mitra, V., Imhoff-Smith, T., Azemi, E., Goldman, R.I., Rosenkranz, M.A., Wu, S., Chen, A., Davidson, R.J. (2023). Slower respiration rate is associated with higher well-being with wellness training. Scientific Reports, 13(15953), doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43176-w.
- Kral, T.R.A., Imhoff-Smith, T., Lapate, R.C., Patsenko, E., Goldman, R., Grupe, D., Goldman, R., Rosenkranz, M.A., Davidson, R.J. (2022). Long-term meditation training is associated with enhanced subjective attention and stronger posterior cingulate – rostrolateral prefrontal cortex resting connectivity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 34(9):1576-1589. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.14.460351.
- Kral, T.R.A., Stodola, D.E., Birn, R.M., Mumford, J., Solis, E., Flook, L., E Patsenko, CG Anderson, CA Steinkuehler, RJ Davidson. (2018). Neural correlates of video game empathy training in adolescents: A randomized trial. npj Science of Learning, 3(1):1-13. doi: 10.1038/s41539-018-0029-6.
A full list of Dr. Kral’s research publications can be found here.