Speaker

Kevin Riordan

Kevin Riordan

PhD student, UW-Madison Department of Counseling Psychology; The Center for Healthy Minds; The Loka Initiative

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Kevin's current research focuses on three primary areas: meditation-based interventions; the relationship between mental/behavioral health and the climate crisis; and effective pedagogy for teaching antiracism and social justice to helping professionals. He is especially interested in the potential for scalable mobile-health technology (e.g, smartphone apps, teletherapy, text-based interventions) to supplement traditional models of weekly or bi-weekly psychotherapy and to help address inequitable access to mental health care. Kevin's diverse clinical training has involved roles in college counseling and community mental health, inpatient and residential care, primary care mental health integration, and psychiatric care for those found not guilty of violent crimes due to serious mental illness. Among his prior pursuits, Kevin worked in outdoor education and international development, and engaged in long-term silent monastic training (including a yearlong retreat). Outside of academia, Kevin loves all kinds of outdoor adventures -- especially wilderness canoe tripping and flying his paraglider. Increasingly, Kevin seeks creative ways to merge his skills as a clinician with his training as an outdoor educator and wilderness guide.

Area of Expertise

  • Humanities & Social Sciences

To sit or not to sit: Optimizing app-based meditation training

Meditation is increasingly delivered through smartphone apps. How app-based meditation training might be optimized is unclear. With Sona Dimidjian serving as discussant, Sin U Lam, Kevin Riordan, Zishan Jiwani, and Simon Goldberg present findings related to meditation app usage, meditation practice dosage, and meditation posture. Sin U’s presentation (Situating Meditation Apps within the Ecosystem of Meditation Practice: A Survey Study) investigates participant characteristics linked to app usage and persistence (N=953). Kevin’s presentation (How Often Should I Meditate? A Randomized Trial) describes the effects of meditation practice distribution (one 20-minute versus two 10-minute meditations per day) in distressed undergraduates (N=351). Simon’s presentation (Random Assignment to High- and Low-dose Meditation Practice) investigates assigning distressed adults to 5- versus 15-minutes of training per day (N=92). Zishan’s presentation (Sitting Versus Active Meditation: Utilization and Associations with Outcomes) uses data from naturalistic meditation app usage (N>60,000) and the meditation arm of a randomized controlled trial (N=314) to examine differences between sitting and “active” meditation (i.e., meditating while doing daily activities). Collectively, these studies shed light on training formats that may improve the acceptability and efficacy of meditation at scale.

Kevin Riordan

PhD student, UW-Madison Department of Counseling Psychology; The Center for Healthy Minds; The Loka Initiative

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