Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN, is a clinician, researcher, mindfulness teacher, and author with over four decades of experience in health care and contemplative science. Her extensive work with individuals facing death and serious illness has informed her approach to living well, which emphasizes the unpredictable nature of life.
A former oncology, psych mental health, palliative care, and hospice nurse, as well as an NIH-funded clinical scientist and mindfulness meditation teacher and researcher, Susan has been recognized with numerous awards and has held leadership positions and taught at esteemed institutions. She facilitates experiential programs online and at leading retreat centers, speaks at public and professional forums, serves and consults with values-aligned organizations, and is the author of two books, A Future We Can Love and Leaves Falling Gently.
A revised and expanded version of Leaves Falling Gently. Pre-order Now! Publication date is May 27, 2025.
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Susan's Work
Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN, in her work with Coming to Life, integrates the different strands of her professional experience in clinical care, scientific research, teaching contemplative practices, and organizational leadership.
Susan is the author of two books, A Future We Can Love: How to Reverse the Climate Crisis Through the Power of Our Hearts & Minds (2023) and Leaves Falling Gently: Living Fully with Serious and Life-Limiting Illness Through Mindfulness, Compassion, & Connectedness (2011). A Future We Can Love is “medicine for despair and anxiety about climate change,” that draws parallels between grief and love for the planet and facing one’s own mortality. A refreshed and expanded version of Leaves Falling Gently is in press, to be published by Shambhala Publications/Penguin Random House in Spring 2025.
For more than 25 years, her heart work/service has been teaching and facilitating retreats, workshops, and groups—blending mindfulness and other contemplative practices, creative and expressive therapies, and nature connection, especially for people living with serious illness and their loved ones as well as health care professionals and students, which she has done throughout the United States and internationally.
Susan’s lifelong interest in spirituality has drawn her to explore different wisdom and faith traditions. This includes being a student and practitioner of Buddhist studies and meditation for over three decades. Susan finds meaning in her precious relationships as a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and friend and in serving as a volunteer, board member, consultant, and advisor to values-aligned organizations and businesses. She lives in central Virginia and is an avid gardener and hiker who is deeply nourished by authentic personal connections, trees, and animals.
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With a foundation as a registered nurse caring for individuals with cancer and mental health challenges as well as those facing the end of life, she pursued PhD studies in psychoneuroimmunology at Rush University in Chicago (funded by an NIH training grant), followed by post-doctoral training in psycho-oncology and behavioral medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. Informed by her clinical practice, Susan’s research throughout her training focused on personal meaning in life and its correlates on measures of immune function and well-being.
An NIH-funded clinical scientist (who received one of the first NIH R01 grants to study meditation in 2005), Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar, and early teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction (completed MBSR teacher clinical practicum training in 1999), Susan has held leadership positions and/or taught at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Emory University, and the University of Virginia (UVA). At UVA, she was an endowed professor in contemplative end-of-life care and director of the Compassionate Care Initiative with dual faculty appointments in Nursing and Religious Studies. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow and served as president and on the board of the professional society, Society for Integrative Oncology.
In 2021, she was recognized as one of ten of “the most powerful women in the mindfulness movement” by Mindful. From 2015 through 2023, Susan was the president of the Mind & Life Institute, a non-profit with global reach that was co-founded by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
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Professional Positions
- President, Mind & Life Institute (2015-2023)
- Kluge Professor in Contemplative End-of-Life Care and Director, Compassionate Care Initiative, School of Nursing, and Adjunct Faculty, Religious Studies
University of Virginia (2013-2016) - Associate Professor (tenured) of Nursing, Emory University (2007-2013)
- Director, The Phyllis F. Cantor Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2001-2007)
- Instructor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (2001-2007)
- Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Nursing, and Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School (1998-2001)
- Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy Reserves, Nurse Corps (1993-2002)
- Hospice Nurse, Dedham Visiting Nurses Association, Dedham, MA (1992-1994)
- Oncology/Bone Marrow Transplant Nurse (BMT), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (1992-1994)
- R.N./nurse clinician/clinical specialist in oncology (in-patient and clinic), BMT, and psych-mental health, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Hanover/Lebanon, NH (1983-1992)
Education, Awards, Service & ResearchRead Less
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinical Practicum (1999) MBSR Teacher Development Intensive (2010) University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Worcester, MA
- Post-doctoral Fellowship in Psycho-Oncology and Behavioral Medicine Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Dartmouth Medical School (1997-98) Funding: American Cancer Society
- Ph.D., Rush University, College of Nursing, Chicago, IL (1997) Dissertation: Psychological and immunological correlates of surviving breast cancer: Influence of children. Funding: NIH T32 NR07052; American Cancer Society; Oncology Nursing Society
- M.S. (Nursing/Clinical Specialist), University of New Hampshire (1990)
- B.S. (Nursing), State University of New York at Plattsburgh (1983)
Awards and Honors (selected)
- One of “Ten Powerful Women of the Mindfulness Movement” by Mindful Magazine/Mindful.org (2021)
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Executive Nurse Fellow (2013-2015)
- Distinguished Scholar, Georgia Cancer Coalition (2007-2012)
- Fellow, American Academy of Nursing (2009, inducted)
- Thomas M. Kloss Leadership Award, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2007)
- Distinguished Alumnus, State University of New York, Plattsburgh, NY (2006)
- Mara Mogensen Flaherty Lectureship Award in Psychosocial Oncology, Oncology Nursing Society (2005)
- Honorary Gold Leaf for the Tree of Life, Hope Lodge, Worcester, MA (2000)
Service (selected)
- Hospice of the Piedmont, volunteer and doula (2024-present)
- Cancer Choices, advisor (2024-present)
- Mindfulness Center of Southern Utah, Board of Directors (2024-present)
- Templeton Philanthropies (John Templeton Foundation, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and Templeton Religion Trust), External Auditor (2022-2023)
- Service Space (2022-present)
- Mission Joy: Finding Happiness in Troubled Times (film), Executive Producer (2021)
- Becoming Jackson Whole, Advisory Board (2019–present)
- Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, Advisory Board (2019–2023)
- Mindful Magazine and mindful.org, Board of Advisors (2013-2018)
- The Women’s Initiative, Board of Directors (2014-2016)
- Mind & Life Institute, Research Advisory Council and Reviewer (2008-2015)
- The Cancer Resource Foundation, Inc., Board of Directors and Advisory Board (2009-2015)
- Society for Integrative Oncology, President and Board of Directors (2008-2015)
- Virginia Thurston Healing Garden, Board of Directors and Advisory Board (2002-2010)
- National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society, numerous study sections and expert panels (2001-2015)
- Hope Lodge, Worcester MA, Path to Healing Group Facilitator (1999-2003)
Retreat/Workshop Teaching and Facilitation (selected)
- Blue Spirit, Nosara, Costa Rica
- CanSupport, New Delhi, India
- Garrison Institute, Garrison, NY
- Healing Garden, Harvard, MA
- Hospice Maui, Wailuku, HI
- Kripalu, Great Barrington, MA
- Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, NY
- Palas Athena, São Paulo, Brazil
- St. John’s Medical Center and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Jackson, WY
- Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, NM
Research Grants (Principal Investigator)
- Caregiver Stress: Interventions to Promote Health and Wellbeing; NIH/NINR P01NR011587 (2009-2012, $3.4M)
- Contemplative Practices for Persons with Early-Stage Dementia and their Family Care Partners: Fostering Well-Being and Connectedness; Emory Religion and Health Collaborative Seed Funding (2008-2010, $25,665)
- Neural Substrates of Mindfulness Meditation in Cancer Patients Undergoing Stem Cell/Autologous Bone Marrow Transplant; Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Research Fund (2007-2011, $200,000)
- Mindfulness Meditation in Bone Marrow Transplantation; NIH/NINR 1R01 NR009257 (2005-2011, $2.8M)
- Web-based Expressive Writing Intervention for Young Women with Newly Diagnosed Breast Cancer; Cancer and Leukemia Group B Foundation (2004-2006, $55,000)
- A Feasibility Study of Mindfulness Meditation for Facing the Challenges of Stem Cell/Bone Marrow Transplantation; Friends of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2001-2003, $25,000)
- Disclosure: Effects on Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer; Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (2000-2003, $250,000)
Publications (selected among 70+)
- Leaves Falling Gently: Living Fully with Serious Illness Through Mindfulness, Compassion, & Connectedness — A Guide for Patients and Loved Ones. Shambhala Publications. (In press)
- A Future We Can Love: How to Reverse the Climate Crisis through the Power of our Hearts and Minds. Shambhala Publications. (2023) (with S. Higgs) [Paperback 2024: A Future We Can Love: Effective Approaches to the Climate Crisis that Begin With Us]
- Experienced meditators, cancer survivors, and matched controls assemble different neural resources to process emotion. MindRxiv (2017). Retrieved from mindrxiv.org/v9hne. Bauer-Wu, S., Butler, A., Rajendra, J., Whitworth, R., Pagnoni, G., Hasenkamp, W., … Barsalou, L.
- Life-Limiting Illness. In: McCown, D., Reibel, D.K., & Micozzi, M.S., editors, Resources for Teaching Mindfulness: A Cross-Cultural and International Handbook. (Springer Publishing, 2016). Bauer-Wu, S.
- Threads of connection and care: Insights from ancient wisdom. Beginnings (American Holistic Nurses Association), April 2016, 10-13. Bauer-Wu, S.
- Prioritizing clinician well-being: Organizational case report of the University of Virginia’s Compassionate Care Initiative, Global Advances in Health and Medicine, (2015). 4(5), 16-22. Bauer-Wu, S., & Fontaine, D.
- Mindfulness meditation lowers sympathetic nerve activity and blood pressure in African-American males with chronic kidney disease. American Journal of Physiology— Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology (2014). 307(1), R93-R101. Park, J., Lyles, R., & Bauer-Wu, S.
- Tibetan Medicine for cancer: An overview and review of case studies. Integrative Cancer Therapies (2014). 13(6), 502-512. Bauer-Wu, S., Lhundup, T., Tidwell, T., et al.
- Afterword in A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit, by Congressman Tim Ryan (Hay House, 2012). Bauer-Wu, S.
- Leaves Falling Gently: Living Fully with Serious & Life-Limiting Illness Through Mindfulness, Compassion, & Connectedness. New Harbinger. (2011)
- Early adulthood uprooted: Transitoriness in young women with breast cancer. Cancer Nursing (2009). 32(3), 246-255. Shaha, M., & Bauer-Wu, S.
- Communication and planning at the end of life: A survey of women with advanced-stage breast cancer. Journal of Communication in Healthcare (2009). 2(4), 371-376. Bauer-Wu, S., Yeager, K., Norris, R.L., Liu, Q., Habin, K.R., Hayes, C., & Jurchak, M.
- Compassionate silence in the patient-clinician encounter: A contemplative approach. Journal of Palliative Medicine (2009). 12 (2), 1113-1117. Back, A.L., Bauer-Wu, S.M., Rushton, C.H., & Halifax, J.
- Facing the challenges of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation with mindfulness meditation: A pilot study. Integrative Cancer Therapies (2008). 7(2), 62-69. Bauer-Wu, S., Sullivan, A., Rosenbaum, E., Ott, M.J., Powell, M., McLoughlin, M., & Healey, M.W.
- Mindfulness meditation for oncology patients: A discussion and critical review. Integrative Cancer Therapies (2006). 5(2), 98-108. Ott, M.J, Norris, R., & Bauer-Wu, S.M.
- Spiritual perspectives and practices at the end-of-life: A review of the major world religions and application to palliative care. Indian Journal of Palliative Care (2007). 13(2), 53-58. Bauer-Wu, S., Barrett, R., & Yeager, K.
- Couples and cancer: Feasibility of brief instruction in massage and touch therapy to build caregiver efficacy. Journal of the Society of Integrative Oncology (2007). 5(4), 147-154. Collinge, W., Walton, T., Kahn, J., Bauer-Wu, S., & McCorkle, R.
- Effects of a music therapy intervention on quality of life and distress in women with metastatic breast cancer. Journal of the Society of Integrative Oncology (2006). 4(3), 62-66. Hanser, S.B., Bauer-Wu, S.M., Kubicek, L., Healey, M., Manola, J., Hernandez, M., & Bunnell. C.
- Meaning in life and psycho-spiritual functioning: A comparison of breast cancer survivors and healthy women. Journal of Holistic Nursing (2005). 23(2), 173-190. Bauer-Wu, S.M. & Farran, C.J.
- Seeds of hope, blossoms of meaning. Oncology Nursing Forum (2005), 32(5), 927-933. Bauer-Wu, S.M.
- Psycho-spiritual well-being in advanced cancer patients: An integrative review. Journal of Advanced Nursing (2003), 44(1), 69-80. Lin, H.R. & Bauer-Wu, S.M.
- Expressive disclosure and health outcomes in a prostate cancer population. International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine (2002), 32(1), 37-53. Rosenberg, H.J., Rosenberg, S.D.,… Bauer-Wu, S.M., Ahles, T.A., & Pennebaker, J.W.