Empathy & Compassion Research - Speaker Series (Spring 2026) - Olivia Jurkiewicz

UC San Diego’s Center for Research on Empathy and Compassion proudly presents the Empathy & Compassion Research Speaker Series for Spring 2026. This free virtual series highlights the impactful and groundbreaking research that Sanford Institute-affiliated faculty and researchers have played an integral role in. This series is designed for anyone with an interest in empathy and compassion in neurobiology and healthcare. The hosting organization, T. Denny Sanford Institute of Empathy and Compassion, represents an unprecedented blending of two parallel themes: employing the unyielding rigor and tools of science to establish the neurological basis for empathy in the brain to identify the mechanisms that transform compassion from biology to behavior, and experimenting with and developing new ways to teach and instill empathy and compassion in clinicians currently practicing and in the teaching of future generations of health professionals. Suppressing Negative Emotion Undermines Compassionate Responding During Conversations 🧍 Olivia Jurkiewicz, MA Individuals often struggle to express compassion when faced with others’ needs or problems. In this work, Dr. Jurkiewicz examines how regulating one’s emotions through suppression can undermine compassionate responding via an attentional mechanism.