About

MindSize Sports is built on a lineage.

Co-founded by Christian Straka and Julianna Raye, in collaboration with Unified Mindfulness. The system itself is older than the program, developed by Shinzen Young across fifty years of research and teaching.

Co-Founders

Two teachers, one program.

Co-Founder / i.

Christian Straka.

Mental Performance Specialist
USC Faculty

Mindfulness-based mental performance specialist with four decades inside competitive sport, as a player, academy head coach, and professional mental performance coach. He worked with Victoria Azarenka through her junior Australian Open titles and junior French Open doubles title, and was Mike Bryan’s mindfulness coach when Bryan and Jack Sock won the 2018 ATP Finals. He created and teaches the first course on mindfulness and athletic performance at USC, and is co-authoring a book on mindfulness and tennis with Mike Bryan. Certified Unified Mindfulness Teacher and member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.

More about Christian

Co-Founder / ii.

Julianna Raye.

Unified Mindfulness CEO
Lead Trainer

CEO, lead curriculum designer, and head trainer at Unified Mindfulness, the system Shinzen Young developed across fifty years of research. More than two decades training individuals and groups in the Unified Mindfulness and Zen traditions. Over twenty thousand hours of formal practice and more than one hundred and twenty weeks of immersive silent retreat. Co-author on published mindfulness and workplace research with David Creswell at Carnegie Mellon.

More about Julianna

The Lineage

The method has a traceable line, fifty years deep.

Origin · 1970s

Shinzen Young

Designed the Unified Mindfulness system across fifty years of research and teaching, integrating multiple meditation traditions into a precise, learnable framework. His scholarly paper “What is Mindfulness” is published by Springer.

Curriculum · Today

Unified Mindfulness

The institution that maintains and teaches the system. Julianna Raye is CEO, lead curriculum designer, and head trainer. Stella Marrie and Don McCormick lead Continuing Education and Education.

Application · 2018

MindSize Sports

Co-founded by Christian Straka and Julianna Raye. The eight-week curriculum that translates the Unified Mindfulness method into structured training for athletes.

Unified Mindfulness · Directors

Stewards of the system.

Unified Mindfulness / iii.

Stella Marrie, PhD.

Director of Continuing Education
Unified Mindfulness

Psychologist, professor, and Zen practitioner. As Director of Continuing Education at Unified Mindfulness, she oversees the organization’s relationship with the American Psychological Association and adherence to APA programming standards. Teaches mindfulness-based psychotherapies and the psychology of compassion at Union Institute & University, and co-facilitates programs at Shao Shan Temple in Vermont. Formal student in the Soto Zen tradition since 2008.

Unified Mindfulness / iv.

Don McCormick, PhD.

Director of Education
Unified Mindfulness

Director of Education at Unified Mindfulness. PhD in organizational behavior from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Co-conducted the first peer-reviewed research on mindfulness in the workplace with Jeremy Hunter, a foundational contribution to the field. Author of more than thirty journal articles and book chapters. Recognized by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for work with the National Institutes of Health and the White House Department of Organization Development.

Research Advisors

Two labs at the back of the work.

Research Advisor / v.

Jay Sanguinetti, PhD.

Science Director, SEMA Lab
University of Arizona

Cognitive neuroscientist and Science Director of the SEMA Lab at the University of Arizona, which he co-founded with Shinzen Young. SEMA investigates how mindfulness practice changes the brain and behavior, and whether non-invasive neuromodulation can augment that practice. Adjunct Professor at the University of Arizona, Research Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico, and Assistant Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies.

Research Advisor / vi.

David Creswell, PhD.

Director, Health & Human Performance Lab
Carnegie Mellon University

Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University and Director of the Health & Human Performance Laboratory. His research examines what makes people resilient under stress, with a focus on the mind-body pathways through which mindfulness training improves health and performance. Recognized as a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science and recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Early Career Award.