Who We Are
Atlanta Insight Meditation Community is a Buddhist meditation, practice, and study community based in the Insight/Vipassana tradition. We are a group of spiritual friends who are committed to the journey of living a peaceful life. Together we take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and Sangha. By taking refuge in the Buddha, we embrace the historical Buddha and his teachings on working with the mind and heart. We also take refuge in our own awakening hearts. We take refuge in the Dhamma, the teachings that guide us in developing our own understanding of the path to peace and freedom. And, we take refuge in Sangha, this community of friends who support one another as we face life's challenges and joys.
Our Sangha is open to anyone interested in living the Dhamma. Our community is a mix of new and advanced practitioners, and we co-create a warm and inviting space in which we welcome everyone and strive to be a diverse and inclusive Sangha. Specifically, we aim to be a welcoming environment for people of color, members of the LGBTQIA community, people with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups. We also welcome those from other spiritual traditions. We ask everyone who practices with us to come in the door with a welcoming attitude of love, acceptance, and openness for all living beings.
We are committed to Engaged Buddhism. Through volunteer efforts within our own community, we look for ways to apply the insights gained from meditation practice as well as from the teachings on lovingkindness and compassion to issues of social, economic, environmental and animal justice.
Our Community
Atlanta Insight Meditation Community is proud to be lead by our Teaching Circle, consisting of our two Founding Teachers and our Practice Leaders. who thoughtfully and respectfully share the Dhamma teachings with us. Additionally, we are grateful for our Advisory Council, which ensures the continuing success of our gatherings, events, and manages the administrative functions of our Sangha.
Most importantly, we are a Community. Together, we look for ways to apply the insight gained from our meditation practice, as well as from the teachings on LovingKindess and compassion to issues of social, economic and enviornmental justice.
Our Teachers
Stephanie Swann
Founding Teacher
Stephanie Swann, PhD, began her journey into Budhadharma in 2008, rooted in the Thai Forest Tradition and Early Buddhism. Among life's many joys, studying the Dhamma and practicing meditation rank among her greatest — as does sharing these teachings with others.
Stephanie spent 30 years as a psychotherapist specializing in trauma treatment, retiring in 2022. Buddhist psychology and Interpersonal Neurobiology were central to her understanding of stress, suffering, and healing. In retirement, she has followed her lifelong love of dogs by co-founding an organization dedicated to caring for dogs at a North Georgia county shelter (ellijaypaws.org). She finds her four-legged teachers of compassion there every day.
Stephanie has taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) since 2010, having received her certification through the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She currently teaches mindfulness courses through Atlanta Mindfulness and serves as a facilitating teacher for Bhikkhu Anālayo's immersive courses on Satipaṭṭhāna, Ānāpānasati, and Brahmavihāras & Emptiness through the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
Stephanie is an advisory council member and teacher for Dharma Voices for Animals, an international Buddhist animal rights and advocacy organization (dharmavoicesforanimals.org). As a committed vegan, she holds deep conviction in a compassionate diet that honors the lives of all sentient beings.
She has trained through the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies' Entering the Path program and the Community Dharma Leaders Program (CDL6) at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
Stephanie brings gentle humor to her teaching, inviting students to embrace the beautiful messiness of life as a doorway to genuine human connection. She lives in Decatur, Georgia, with her spouse, Nancy, and their three rescue dogs — Willa Dean, Moose, and Cricket.
Susan Reviere
Founding Teacher
Susan Reviere, PhD, has studied Buddhism and mindfulness/meditation practices for more than 30 years, initially exploring the Thich Nhat Hanh and Zen traditions before settling into her spiritual home in the Insight tradition. She has studied and practiced intensively through one-on-one mentoring, residential retreats, sutta study, and intensive study courses with Dori Langevin, Tara Brach & the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, Lisa Ernst of One Dharma Nashville, Thanissara & Kittisaro & Sacred Mountain Sangha, Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia & Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Mindful Schools, and Awareness Training Institute (ATI).
Susan is a graduate of the 2-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program led by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield and certified by ATI and UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and she now serves as a mentor for this program training new teachers. She has served on the mentor team for several of Tara Brach’s online mindfulness courses. She also served on the mentor faculty for the Sounds True Power of Awareness meditation training course, taught by Tara Brach & Jack Kornfield. With the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, Susan served as a mentor and facilitated IMCW’s first online meditation group and still consults as needed with new online facilitators. She periodically teaches mindfulness practices to interns and post-doctoral fellows at Emory University School of Medicine, where she has served as faculty or adjunct faculty since 1998.
She is a clinical psychologist, offering both mindfulness-based psychotherapy and mindfulness/meditation mentoring. Susan loves the Brahma Viharas and holds deep interest in the sacred feminine and devotional practice. Her passions are her family, dharma study, hiking, mountains, and music. Her commitments are open-heartedness, gratitude, environmental and social justice, and embodied spirituality. She finds joy in sharing these transformative teachings and hopes to transmit her love of the Dharma to others on this path.
Nicole Carlson
Practice Leader
Nicole Carlson has been a mindfulness practitioner for over 16 years in the Insight tradition. Nicole teaches others about the basics of mindfulness through her work as a Mindfulness Based Childbirth and Parenting teacher trainee and a teacher of the Community Resilience Method through the Trauma Resource Institute. She has practiced with the Atlanta Insight Meditation Community for 7 years, and currently serves that sangha as a practice leader.
Nicole is a current member of Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leaders training program. In her professional life, Nicole is a Certified Nurse-Midwife who practices and conducts research on birth equity at Atlanta Birth Center and Emory University.
Keith Hunt
Practice Leader
Keith has been practicing in the Insight tradition for the past five years and has been teaching mindfulness for the last three. He completed his Mindful Meditation Teacher Certification through Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s MMTCP program, and he is currently enrolled in the Community Dharma Leaders training at Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center.
Keith has been a member of the Atlanta Insight Meditation Community for four years, where he now serves as a practice leader. His teaching is grounded in both personal practice and a commitment to making mindfulness accessible and relevant in everyday life.
In his professional life, Keith works as an Account Executive at DoorDash.
AIMC Board, Council and Key Contributors
Doug Kallman
President
The Dharma found Doug in 2014 and he has been benefiting from the Buddha's teachings ever since. He has primarily practiced in the Insight tradition and has enjoyed additional exposure to other traditions and teachings including Plum Village, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Lojong and Yogacara.
Doug has been involved in the Atlanta Insight Meditation Community since 2020 and feels deep gratitude for this warm, supportive sangha of spiritual friends and teachers.
Laura Smallwood
Past President
Laura was introduced to mindfulness meditation in 2016 through work she was doing as a veterinarian to advance wellbeing for veterinary workers. From there she began her path as a meditator and eventually a teacher. Laura is certified as a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher, a Community Resiliency Model teacher, and a yoga teacher.
Laura has been a member of Atlanta Insight Meditation Community since its formation and was a member of the Atlanta Secular Buddhist Sangha prior to that. She currently serves as the AIMC Retreat Manager. Laura's loves include the natural world, her family, preparing delicious food, and helping people connect with wisdom and joy.
Tim Bryson
Treasurer
Tim's Dharma journey began with an inspiration from a high school class assignment in 1966 which led to study of Buddhism in college, then two years of Zen training, seven years of monastic training in Vedanta, and a PhD in History of Religions at the University of Chicago. Before retirement in 2015, he worked at the Harvard Center for World Religions, the American Academy of Religions, and Emory University Libraries.
Tim enjoys studying the Pali Suttas, meditation, and sharing his journey with this Sangha.
Margi Conrads
Secretary/Virtual Host
Margi began investigating meditation and the Dharma in early 2020, just before the pandemic took hold. Online talks and a class with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield introduced her to Insight Meditation, after and through which her practice and study have grown. Coincidentally Susan served as a mentor to the Brach/Kornfield class and she kindly invited Margi to check out Atlanta Insight Meditation Community, which she thankfully could join online from her midwest locale.
As time went on, she had the opportunity to deepen her practice and study of the Dharma through yearlong classes and study with Stephanie and sutta study offered by Bhikkhu Analayo through the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Now retired and residing in Western North Carolina with her husband David, Margi is privileged to live surrounded by nature in beautiful mountains as she embraces what life brings in this chapter.
David Ray
Board Member
David became interested in contemplative practices while studying to become a Christian minister. Attracted by their contemplative approach to spiritual life and commitment to social justice, he later became a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers).
In the early 2000s he discovered the writings of Zen Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hahn and began incorporating Buddhist-inspired meditation into his practice. After moving to Washington, DC, in 2012 for work, he and his late wife, Gail Vogels, began practicing with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, and studying with Tara Brach and former Plum Village nun, Kaira Jewel Lingo.
When they moved back to Atlanta in 2022, they were happy to find AIMC. After Gail’s death in 2024, David dove more deeply into the practice and has found great support and joy in the Buddha, dharma and sangha. He also enjoys time with his two adult children, participating in retreats at the Southern Dharma Retreat Center, cycling, travel and volunteering with the local Atlanta refugee resettlement community.
Tara Doyle
Board Member/Virtual Host
Tara began her Buddhist practice at Tassajara Zen Center. After spending several years in Nepal and India, she co-founded Antioch’s Buddhist Studies Program in Bodh Gaya, where she studied with Vipassana teachers Muninda-ji, Dipa-Ma, and Godwin Samamaratne, as well as Tibetan teachers Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche and Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche.
During this time, Tara also received a Ph.D. in S. Asian Religions at Harvard. She was hired by Emory and founded a Tibetan Studies Program in Dharamsala, where she lived part-time for sixteen years, developing a close relationship with H.H. the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exile community.
Tara now teaches at Emory’s Candler School of Theology on either Buddhism and Social Justice or Buddhist Spiritual Care. She works closely with several immigrant organizations through the activist group, Necessary Trouble. She has been a member of AIMC for 3 years, where she serves on the board and offers classes on Buddhism to our sangha.
Nicoletta Smareglia
Board Member
Danno McDonald
Technology Coordinator
Chris Bernstein
Virtual Host
Blaine Little
Audio Recording Support
Our Mission, Vision, and Values
Atlanta Insight Meditation Community is a Buddhist Sangha practicing in the Insight tradition. Our aspiration is to create a welcoming and inclusive spiritual community offering the transformative teachings of a living Dhamma to guide daily life and practice. Our vision is to support awakening and freedom for all beings through practices of lovingkindness, compassion, generosity, and deep seeing that cultivate wisdom, ethical living, and mindfulness.
Our community is informed by these values:
We value the study and practice of the lasting teachings of the Buddhadharma.
We value and celebrate diversity, inclusivity, and respect for all beings and recognize the inherent dignity of all.
We vow to work against all forms of oppression.
We are committed to engagement, justice, equity, and celebration of interdependence.
We vow to create a space of “Sangha as practice” by supporting mutual respect and mindful dialogue.
