Our Board
Susan Altabet, President
Susan is founding board member of both DNKL: Tibetan Buddhist Center for Universal Peace and the Center for Compassion and Creativity. Susan is a versatile musician as well as avid translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. A member of the Tibetan Translators Guild of New York, Susan also teaches voice, flute, piano, and recorder. You can listen to some of Susan’s music here.
Denise Bevza
Denise Bevza is an attorney at Bevza & Brennan, LLC, in New London, CT. While legal matters are often difficult and unwanted, they often create opportunities to change patterns that no longer work. Once we soften to these changes, it frees us up to take more effective action and reclaim our lives and purpose. Denise has been a board member of DNKL since 2017, and a Board member of CCC since 2021.
Michael Bosco
Michael Bosco is a musician, writer, and educator from New Haven, CT. He is the founder of the Creativity and Compassion Club at Western Connecticut State University which helped organize His Holiness the Dalai Lama's visit to his alma mater in 2012. Michael co-wrote the article The Ambiguity of Choice included in Creativity and Compassion: How They Come Together (Karuna Publications). A former special education instructor, Michael has lectured on holistic consciousness and chaos theory in the M.Ed. program at The Institute for Educational Studies and continues to write on the subjects of consciousness and the natural world.
John Briggs, Treasurer
John Briggs is a retired distinguished professor of Writing and Aesthetics at Western Connecticut State University. He is author of several books on creative process and Chaos Theory, and the editor of the book Creativity and Compassion. www.betweenlinesbooks.com
Stephen Dydo, Secretary
Stephen Dydo is a composer whose works focusing on the search for a spiritual basis to modern life have been performed in the US, Europe, and Asia; he has aught music theory and performance at Columbia, William Paterson University, the New School, and Greenwich House. As a founding board member for the Center for Compassion,
and Creativity. Currently active in the music scenes of New York and Western Massachusetts, he is also on the boards of the CCC, the Association for the Promotion of New Music, and DNKL Tibetan Buddhist Center for Universal Peace, Redding CT. www.StephenDydo.com
Wilson Hurley, Vice President
Wilson C. Hurley is a clinical social worker in private practice in Northern VA. He specializes in working with children, adolescents, and families, but also works with adults in individual therapy. He was an adjunct professor in the Social Work Department at George Mason University from 2012-2024. His publications include Compassion’s What Is Mind and What Happens to It When We Die? (Journal of Mind and Behavior, 2024), Compassion’s COMPASS: Strategies for Developing Insight, Kindness, and Empathy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Enhancing a Positive School Climate with Compassion and Analytical Selective-Focus Skills (IISTE Journal of Education and Practice, 2014), and The Water and Wood Shastras (Karuna Publications, 2012), which he co-translated from Tibetan with Yeshe Khedrup. http://compassmethods.com/
Megan Mook
For over 20 years, Megan Mook has thoroughly immersed herself in the study of Buddhism, yoga, and natural healing. She holds a Master’s Degree in Buddhist Studies and has worked on Tibetan language translation projects with Drs. Robert Thurman and Gen Lozang Jamspal of Columbia University. A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, Megan leads online and in-person classes and retreats, and mentors individuals in their meditation practice. MeganMook.com