Alex Haley, PhD, JD, MS, MBA
Assistant Professor, Integrative Health and Wellbeing Research Program
Contact
Email
Office Phone
Office Address
Mayo C592
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States
Mailing Address
Center for Spirituality & Healing
University of Minnesota
420 Delaware Street, SE, MMC 505
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States
Education
PhD, Cognitive Science, University of Minnesota
JD, University of Minnesota
MBA, University of Minnesota
MS, Cognitive Science, University of Minnesota
BA, Carleton College
Summary
Alex Haley is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality & Healing where he teaches academic courses and assists with clinical research.
His areas of study include mindfulness, embodiment, behavior change and designing online / virtual reality learning environments. Alex is also a member of the Interactive Visualization Lab.
Alex completed a four-year training program through the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the Insight Retreat Center under the guidance of his mentors Joseph Goldstein and Guy Armstrong. He has also been trained by the Center for Mindfulness, the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, and the Coaches Training Institute.
Alex has studied and practiced meditation for more than 15 years, including many months of intensive retreat practice, and worked for start-ups, mid-sized companies and large multinationals both domestically and internationally in legal and business roles. He is also a founding member of the Mindfulness for Students network and leads residential retreats around the country.
Alex completed extensive Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training through the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts, founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He received his MBSR Teacher Certification designation from Brown University’s Mindfulness Center and is included on the Center’s Registry of Certified MBSR Teachers, representing an international community of teachers and leaders in the field of MBSR and mindfulness.
Research
Research Summary/Interests
- Applied mindfulness within business and legal settings
- Somatic experiencing
- Technology and wellbeing
- Online learning
- Mindfulness for educators and students
Research Funding Grants
Reaching Rural Veterans: Applying Mind-Body Skills for Pain Using a Whole Health
Telehealth Intervention (UG3NR020929, Burgess) – National Institutes of Health National Institute of Nursing Research – Role: Co-Investigator
Partners for Pain & Wellbeing Equity: A Randomized Trial of Community Supported Complementary and Integrative Health Self Management for Back Pain (1R61AT012309-01 Evans/Leininger) -- National Institutes of Health Center for Complementary & Integrative Health
Mindful Movement for Physical Activity and Wellbeing in Older Adults: A Community Based Randomized Hybrid Effectiveness-Implementation Study (4R33AT0009110, Evans) -- National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health
Spinal Manipulation and Patient Self-Management to Prevent Back Pain Chronicity -- PACBACK (4UG3AT008769, Bronfort) -- National Institutes of Health Center for Complementary & Integrative Health
Testing Two Scalable, Veteran-Centric Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: A Pragmatic, Multisite Trial (NH170001, Burgess) – National Institutes of Health & Department of Veterans Affairs Pain Management Collaboratory – Role: Co-Investigator
VR for Health: Patient-Specific Virtual Reality Environments for Mindfulness-Based Healing (Internal Funding, Keefe) – University of Minnesota IEM Exploratory Grant – Role: Co-Investigator
Publications
Haley, A., Thorpe, D., Pelletier, A., Yarosh, S., & Keefe, D. F. (2023). Inward VR: Toward a Qualitative Method for Investigating Interoceptive Awareness in VR. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 29(5), 2557-2566.
Kennedy, D. P., Haley, A., & Evans, R. (2023). Design of a mindfulness-based intervention to support teachers’ emotional regulation behaviors. Current Psychology, 42(18), 15674-15687.
Haley, A., & Wacker, D. A. (2022). Cinematic virtual reality for anxiety management in mechanically ventilated patients: a feasibility and pilot study. Acute and Critical Care, 37(2), 230-236.
Burgess, D.J., Evans, R., Allen, K.D., Bangerter, A., Bronfort, G., Cross, L.J., Ferguson, J.E., Haley, A., Hagel Campbell, E.M., Mahaffey, M.R. and Matthias, M.S. (2020). Learning to Apply Mindfulness to Pain (LAMP): Design for a pragmatic clinical trial of two mindfulness-based interventions for chronic pain. Pain Medicine, 21(Supplement_2), S29-S36.
Schroeder, D., Korsakov, F., Jolton, J., Keefe, F. J., Haley, A., & Keefe, D. F. (2013). Creating widely accessible spatial interfaces: mobile vr for managing persistent pain. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 33(3), 82-89.