Our Story

Our Plan? Change the world, one smiling scientist at a time.

Our mission

The Smiling Science Alliance was created because we want to integrate the scientific and contemplative minds. We want to evolve as people, not just as scientists. We want kindness and compassion to rule how we perform at work, and how we excel in life. As our careers move forward, we realized that forensic scientists and practitioners at every level work extremely hard at gaining and maintaining scientific and procedural proficiency...but at what cost?

Is there a way we can exercise both the mind and the body to perform better, recover more quickly, and be at peace in the process? We think the answer is YES.

Principles

NEUROBIOLOGY

Can we change our brain biology to be more aware, more focused, more efficient and happier all at the same time? Studies show that we can.

MEDITATION

Mindfulness-based meditation techniques can lower your cortisol levels, decreasing your risk of disease, decline, degradation and discomfort.

RESILIENCY

How can we build resiliency when we are pulled a hundred different ways, every day? What if what we see, read, testify about and analyze is so horrific, we can't stop thinking about it? The WAY we think about it is the key...resiliency training helps.

COMPASSION AND INTEGRITY

Bringing more compassion into our work is essential in how we survive, and thrive, in a traumatic field such as forensic science. Compassion fatigue may lead to apathy and worse, cognitive bias. When you're mindful and aware, you make decisions based on integrity.

HEALTH

The health of both the mind and the body are essential to resilience and your ability to thrive. Sleep, activity, connections, and your mindset all play crucial roles in your happiness.

PERFORMANCE

We each have our own definition of success. What does yours entail? Getting ahead in your career? Raising great kids? Changing the world? Mindfulness practice can help us all achieve our goals of fulfillment, no matter what they are.