In Loving Memory of Professor James R. Doty

It’s hard to put into words the passing of someone like Jim Doty.

I first met Jim in 2014 when I visited him at Stanford University, where he founded and directed the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE). We spoke at length that day about compassion—what it is, how it moves through systems, and how it might be better understood, taught, and practiced. He invited me to his home afterwards for a meal with him and his lovely family, and I remember leaving with that warm feeling you get when someone opens their door, and their life, to you.

Jim was later the inaugural keynote speaker at our UQ Compassion Symposium. He brought not just research and insight, but also story and heart. We also had the chance to collaborate—on research, writing, and broader projects—one of which was a chapter with James Kirby in A Practitioner’s Guide to Ethics and Mindfulness-Based Interventions, titled Compassion as the Highest Ethic. It’s a phrase that really does capture something essential about Jim’s life and work.

We spent time together at conferences, in the US and the UK, and often over Zoom. More recently, I had been consulting on a project Jim was developing at the intersection of compassion and technology—another area where his curiosity, creativity, and concern for others came together.

And then, of course, there was our conversation for Compassion in a T-Shirt.

It’s that conversation I’ve been revisiting in recent days. Jim spoke openly about trauma, shame, and striving. He described how, as a child, he created a list of goals: a Rolex, a Porsche, a million dollars. But underneath those goals was something deeper—a longing to feel worthy, safe, and seen. “What I was actually trying to manifest,” he said, “was not those things. It was my worthiness.”

He talked about how early wounds can shape lives—how fear, if we’re not careful, becomes the lens through which we see the world. But he also spoke about how that can shift. Through presence. Through love. Through compassion.

“Everyone is suffering,” he said. “Everyone has shame… and everyone wants to be loved. And when you really embrace that, not just intellectually but in your heart, it changes the way you relate to yourself and others.”

Jim brought together science, storytelling, and a deeply lived sense of humanity. He could talk neuroscience one moment, and offer a simple, quiet act of kindness the next. He lived the work.

I’ve put together a short tribute from our interview. It’s just a few moments in time. But they’re his own words, and they say something about the person he was.

A teacher. A colleague. A friend. And a person who helped many of us see a little more clearly what really matters.

Vale, James Doty.

You can watch or listen to the tribute to Professor James Doty in his own words on Compassion in a T-Shirt. May we all move towards love and compassion.