Cheri Maples

Maples received an undergraduate degree in social welfare and economics from University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, a master's degree in social work from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a J.D. from University of Wisconsin Law School.

For 25 years Maples worked in the criminal justice system, as an assistant attorney general in the Wisconsin Department of Justice, as the head of Probation & Parole for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, and as a police officer with the City of Madison Police Department, earning the rank of Captain of Personnel and Training.

Before becoming a police officer in 1984, she worked as a community organizer, working in neighborhood centers, deferred prosecution programs, and domestic violence programs, and was the first employee and head of the Wisconsin Coalition against Domestic Violence.

Maples' efforts were on teaching mindfulness and meditation - including to people in prison - keynote speaking, training and Time Banking. She spoke from personal experience about topics such as the effects of secondary trauma on those working in helping professions. She was a member of SnowFlower Sangha in Madison, Wisconsin, where she resided.

She had been a lay member of Hanh's Order of Interbeing since 2002. Maples was also the co-founder of the Center for Mindfulness & Justice, a keynote speaker, and an organizational consultant and trainer. Cheri was known for combining the mindfulness tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh with vipassana practice in her teaching and taught nationally, including with Sharon Salzberg and at Tara Brach's Insight Meditation Community of Washington.

A police officer for 20 years with the Madison Police Department, she organized a first-of-its-kind non-sectarian retreat in 2003 with Thich Nhat Hanh and criminal justice professionals, which received considerable national attention. An outgrowth of the retreat was a book by Hahn entitled Keeping the Peace: Mindfulness and Public Service, with the foreword by Maples.