Al'ai Alvarez

In July 2025, CCARE lost its founder, teacher, and friend. Dr. James R. Doty helped establish compassion as a field of scientific inquiry, and nothing we build replaces him. Our responsibility is to honor what Jim started and carry it forward.

After six months as Interim Director, I’m honored to continue as Director of CCARE. In that time, we launched and completed our inaugural 4-month CCARE Compassion Lab with 51 practitioners across 10 countries and 24 professions. We built new infrastructure, including Compassion & Wellbeing in Healthcare launching this September and the CCARE Immersion, our first in-person gathering since the pandemic, this October. And we welcomed new colleagues, including Dr. Stephanie Balters, who is leading our research strategy.

My first priority wasn’t adding more programs, it was building the clarity, structure, and trust for the right work to take root. We’re growing deliberately, not quickly. As part of that growth, we’re exciting to announce that we are hiring a new team member to support our online programs (see below). None of it happens without the people who shaped this chapter. Thank you.

Jim spent his life showing that compassion is a force, not a soft skill. Our responsibility now is to keep building the evidence and putting it into practice.

With gratitude,

Al’ai Alvarez, MD

Director, CCARE

🎥 In this excerpt from a past CCARE conversation, Dr. Doty reflects with Krista Tippett on the human capacity to change ourselves and each other, and the quiet space where that change begins ❤️

Being here in McLeodganj, close to the Tibetan community in exile, has me reflecting on the roots of CCARE and the personal donation from His Holiness the Dalai Lama that helped bring this work into being 20 years ago, an origin that feels especially resonant where exile, resilience, faith, and community are so present. It reminds me that struggle takes many forms across a life, not from a place of comparative suffering but from a deeper awareness of our interconnectedness, and that compassion asks us to recognize the humanity in one another while also noticing the state of our own energy, attention, and inner resources.

Even at a conference built for reflection, life can feel frenetic, as we move from one session to the next and climb the foothills of the Himalayas amid the honking traffic, much as we climb the never-ending ladder of academic and professional life toward the next goal, the next responsibility, the next measure of impact. Yet compassion requires more than motion; it requires presence, and sometimes that is as simple as stopping on the trail long enough to take in the view.

During my sabbatical here four years ago, I met with Yangten Rinpoche, who noticed my phone and remarked how it had become far more a smart computer than a device for making calls, then asked, “What happens when the phone runs out of battery?” I said I would charge it, and he replied, “It becomes a useless piece of metal.” I have thought about that often. We are never useless, and our worth is not measured by our output, but when we do not rest and recover, our ability to serve, connect, and respond with compassion diminishes.

When we pause, we are not stepping away from the work; we are returning to the conditions that let us do it with clarity, humility, and care.

So as summer arrives, may you find moments of solitude and grace, and, as the author John Mark Comer puts it, allow your soul to catch up with your body.

With gratitude,

Al’ai Alvarez, MD

Director, CCARE