Wellbeing & Faith-Specific Consultations

Dr Barbara Jikai Gabrys, Zen Master, is a peripatetic European physicist. She was an Academic Advisor to the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division at the University of Oxford 2007-2015. Barbara is an alumna of Somerville College, MSc (Master of Science), Software Engineering 2001. Her work in science has taken her all over the world, and mapped out the way to integrate spiritual practice with academic life. She studied with several Zen masters since 1982, and received the Dharma transmission from  Shinzan Miyamae Rōshi in the Rinzai tradition in 2018.

Barbara’s teaching is focused on helping others to achieve their full potential. She is a lead author of a ‘guide book’ How to succeed as a scientist: from postdoc to professor, B.J. Gabrys and J.A. Langdale, Cambridge University Press, 2012. She enjoys teaching well-being and mindfulness meditation, secular though based on Zen, both in university and beyond context.

Mariella De Martini has been sharing Yoga practices at Oxford Colleges, Executive Leadership Programmes at Said, NHS staff and in the community since 1995 and she is Leading Yoga teacher at Rhodes House. She has trained in the tradition of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga with Sri Pattabhi Jois and his immediate students since 1992 and obtained a formal certificate from one of them, John Scott, for a 2 Year Intensive Teacher Training.

When she started practising her health and outlook on life underwent a major positive transformation. A transformation she has been keen to foster in others ever since and in the teachers she has trained in yearly informal apprenticeships.

Further qualifications include a 10-week Yoga in Healthcare Programme and 3 diplomas in Traditional Yoga in Yoga and Meditation under a foremost Indian scientist and Yogi, Dr Kumar. She is Senior Yoga Teacher at Yoga Alliance Professionals UK.