Jason S. Tsukahara, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Dr. Tsukahara directs the CALM Lab and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
Education
Ph.D. in Cognitive Brain Science
Georgia Tech · Dr. Randall Engle
M.A. in Experimental Psychology
CSU, San Bernardino · Dr. Hideya Koshino
B.A. in Behavioral Neuroscience
Western Washington University
Currently Teaching
Graduate Courses
- Cognitive Psychology
Undergraduate Courses
- Sensation and Perception
Selected Publications
About
Jason Tsukahara is from Bothell, WA (~30 miles north of Seattle) and will always consider the Pacific Nortwest as home. He earned his B.A. in Behavioral Neuroscience at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA where he found his interest in cognitive psychology, Buddhism, meditation, and contemplative practices more generally. After college, he took a year off to participate in an 8-week silent meditation retreat on Shamatha and the Four Immeasurables in Phuket, Thailand guided by Lama Alan Wallace.
From there, Jason went on to do a 2 year M.A. program in General Experimental Psychology at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) where he worked with Dr. Hideya Koshino doing research on selective attention and working memory. He was then accepted into Randy Engle’s lab as a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech. This provided Jason with an incredible opportunity to work on cutting-edge research on individual differences in attention control. He also served as the President of the Meditation Club at Georgia Tech and worked with several faculty to bring mindfulness practices to the broader university community. He graduated with his Ph.D. in December 2022 and worked as a post-doc with Randy for a year and a half. He then went on to do a post-doc with Amishi Jha at the University of Miami in 2024 to extend the work he had done at Georgia Tech in an area that is very near to his heart, mindfulness and meditation. This was a great opportunity for him to get involved in an area of research that he is both academically and personally passionate about. Jason now directs the CALM Lab and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
Outside of psychology, Jason’s interests include Buddhist spiritual practice (mainly influenced by the Nyingma tradition from Tibetan Buddhism and Dzogchen teachings in particular), teaching meditation and mindfulness practices, hiking, camping, riding his bicycle around town, and photography. He hopes to learn how to surf at some point in the future and is always looking for new recommendations for good hiking trails in the Wilmington area.