Yogacharya Dr. Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani is the Chairman of the International Centre for Yoga Education and Research at the Ananda Ashram, Pondicherry, South India . A Fellow of the Indian Academy of Yoga, he has authored ten DVD's and six books on Yoga as well as published two dozen papers and abstracts on Yoga and Yoga research in national and international journals. He is a Gold Medalist in Medical Studies (MBBS) with postgraduate diplomas in Family Health (PGDFH) and Yoga (PGDY). He is a Carnatic Vocalist, Mridungist, Music Composer and Bharathantyam Choreographer in addition to his duties as a medical officer in the Village Health Programme of the Auroville Health Centre. He has traveled to Italy, Germany and Switzerland as the Cultural Ambassador of the International Yoga Federation and is Advisor of the World Yoga Council and Member of the International Council for Yoga Sport. www.icyer.com
Dr. Marc Halpern is the founder and director of the California College of Ayurveda (www.ayurvedacollege.com and a founding director of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association. He has written dozens of articles in national magazines and sits on several international advisory boards. An internationally recognized teacher Ayurveda and Ayurvedic Yoga, Dr. Halpern can be reached though the College's website
Larry Payne Ph.D., is the founding president of the International Association of Yoga Therapists and co-author of international bestseller Yoga for Dummies and Yoga Rx. He was selected as a Yoga expert by Web MD, The World Economic Forum, Reader's Digest, Yoga Journal and named "One of America's most respected Yoga teachers" by The Los Angeles Times. He is also Co-founder of the Yoga curriculum at The UCLA School of Medicine, and Director of the Yoga Therapy Rx certification program at Loyola Marymount University. Larry has been a student of TKV Desikachar since 1980.
Jnani Chapman is a nurse and clinical specialist at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. She has been a yoga teacher since 1975 and a massage/acupressure practitioner since 1986, specializing in helping people with cancer, heart disease and chronic illness. She is a senior staff member of the Cancer Help Programs at Commonweal in Bolinas, CA and the Smith Farm Center in Washington, DC. She is a past executive director for the International Association of Yoga Therapists (1995-98) and was a stress management specialist for Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease (1987-99).
Sat Bir S. Khalsa, Ph.D. has been involved in the practice of a yoga lifestyle for over 35 years and is a Kundalini Yoga instructor. He has conducted neuroscience research for over 25 years and is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and is also the Director of Research for the Kundalini Research Institute and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. His current research is on the effectiveness of yoga and meditation practices and includes studies on yoga for insomnia, music performance anxiety and public schools among others. He has traveled internationally meeting and collaborating with yoga research scientists and assists in coordinating the research component of the annual Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research of the International Association of Yoga Therapists. He is the author of a comprehensive review and analysis of yoga therapy research and he also teaches an elective course at Harvard Medical School in Mind Body Medicine.
Amy Weintraub, MFA, E-RYT (500), author of Yoga for Depression (Broadway Books) and founding director of the LifeForce Yoga® Healing Institute, leads professional certification trainings in LifeForce Yoga® for Depression and Anxiety for mental health professionals and Yoga teachers. She is also a senior Kripalu teacher and Mentor. Amy is featured on the CD, Breathe to Beat the Blues and the first DVD home Yoga practice series for mood management, the award-winning LifeForce Yoga® to Beat the Blues. She leads workshops and CEU trainings throughout North America at such venues as the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium, the American Holistic Medical Association Annual Conference, the Integrative Psychiatry Conference, Kripalu Center, Omega Institute, the Crossings, Mount Madonna Center, and the LA Times Festival of Health and Fitness.
Amy was a 2007 Colloquium Speaker at the Boston University Graduate School of Psychology.
Her bi-monthly newsletter includes current research, news and media reviews on Yoga and mental health. Please visit her website to subscribe.
Deborah Quilter is an internationally-recognized expert in repetitive strain injury (RSI) and an author, consultant and certified yoga teacher. She has written 2 books, The Repetitive Strain Injury Recovery Book and Repetitive Strain Injury: A Computer User's Guide, and has made many appearances in the media.
Ms. Quilter has presented her work in both the U.S. and abroad, and has helped many people with RSI recover more use of their upper extremeity without exacerbating pain.
Ms. Quilter studied Ergonomic Guidelines for Computer Use at the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Biomechanics of Human Movement at M.I.T. She founded a program to teach yoga to senior citizens at the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. This class has been featured on both the Martha television and radio shows and was given a Diversity in Teaching Yoga grant by Kripalu for for this program.
Ms. Quilter is on the faculty of the Rocky Mountain Institute for Yoga and Ayurveda, and she teaches master classes in addition to her practice in New York City. She is currently working on another book.
Neil Pearson is founder and director of life is now, a company that focuses on pain management and pain science education, through yoga, physical therapy and workshops. Neil works as a certified yoga therapist and a physical therapist, combining his extensive experience working one-on-one with people with persistent pain and working in multidisciplinary pain management clinics, with therapeutic yoga. Neal is a passionate and brilliant educator. His workshops include Anatomy/Physiology for Yoga as a component of yoga teacher and yoga therapist training programs, and Yoga and Chronic Pain. He is a clinical faculty member at the University of British Columbia, and he teaches post-grad courses for health care professionals in pain science, prevention, treatment and self-management. His book, Understand Pain, Live Well Again is popular with health care professionals to assist with educating their patients. Neil has also developed pain management courses for the public, titled Overcome Pain, Live Well Again. Pilot study findings, from his research team, support the effectiveness of this education for changing pain beliefs, negative thinking and self-efficacy, all of which are barriers to recovery. Neil is founding chair of the Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Sciences Division, provides consultation services to Orion Health Pain Clinics in Canada, and lectures internationally.
Nischala Joy Devi is a master teacher and healer. For over 30 years she has been highly respected as an international advocate for her innovative way of expressing Yoga and its subtle uses for spiritual growth and complete healing.
She was graced to study wtih Yoga Masters in U.S. and Indiand worldwide and was a monastic disciple of the world renowned Yogiraj Sri Swami Satchidananda and spent over 25 years receiving his direct guidance and teachings. During her time in the monastery she began to blend western medicine with yoga and meditation. She then offered her expertise in developing the yoga portion of The Dean Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease where she subsequently served for seven years as Director of Stress Management. She also co-founded the award-winning Commonweal Cancer Help Program.
Nischala Devi produced the "Abundant Well-Being Series" CD's to allow these simple yet profound Yoga and stress-relieving techniques to reach more people. Her book "The Healing Path of Yoga," now in its sixth printing, also expresses these teachings.
With her knowledge of yoga and her experience in assisting those with life-threatening diseases, she created Yoga of the Heart, a training and certification program for Yoga teachers and health professionals designed to adapt Yoga practices to the special needs of that population.
Nischala Devi is now directing her energies to bringing the feminine heart perspective back into spirituality and the scriptures through her new book, The Secret Power of Yoga, a woman's guide to the heart and spirit of the Yoga Sutras, Random House 2007.as well as related workshops for nursing, social work, therapeutic recreation staff and family members working/living with this population.
Sherri Baptiste is an inspirational teacher at the forefront of yoga training in the United States. She was born into a rich heritage and family of pioneering teachers; her parents, Magaña and Walt Baptiste, established yoga on the West Coast in the mid-1950s. Sherri has been teaching yoga since her teens and is the founder of "Baptiste Power of Yoga," a nationally recognized yoga method, as well as a yoga with weights teacher-training program and a yoga teacher certification and advancing studies program recognized by Yoga Alliance.
Sherri presents classes and workshops throughout the United States and hosts retreats around the world. She's a presenter for Western Athletics' Bay Clubs, Gold's Gym, Nautilus, Equinox, IDEA World Fitness, Body Mind Spirit, ECA, AFPA, and offers many yoga retreats, including retreats at Kripalu, Omega, Haramara, Green Gulch Zen Center, Rancho La Puerta Spa, and Feathered Pipe Ranch. A radio and television personality, she is featured in video, dvd, and cd programs that include "Power of Yoga" and "Power of Meditation". Sherri is the author of 'Yoga with Weights for Dummies' (Wiley) released nationwide Jan. 06".
Timothy McCall, M.D., is a board-certified specialist in internal medicine and a dedicated yoga practitioner who has traveled to India and throughout the United States observing, training with, and interviewing the world's leading yoga teachers and therapists. He is the medical editor of Yoga Journal, writes a regular column on yoga therapy for YJ's teachers' newsletter My Yoga Mentor, and is the author of Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing (Bantam). Timothy has just returned from fifth trip to India in the last seven years, where he studies with a traditional Ayurvedic Vaidhya (doctor) in Kerala, and a Tantric master in Bangalore. He can be found on the web at www.DrMcCall.com
Swami Veda Bharati has spent the past 60 years teaching and providing spiritual guidance around the world. He was raised in the five-thousand-year-old tradition of Sanskrit-speaking scholar-philosophers of India, and has taught the Yoga-sutras of Patanjali from the age of nine and the Vedas from the age of eleven.
All of his knowledge has come intuitively, and he has attained the highest academic degrees, all between June 1965 and 1967. In 1969, he met his Spiritual Master, Swami Rama, and was initiated into one of the highest paths of Dhyana-yoga.
He has studied and is well-versed in the scriptures of all religions, understands 17 languages with varying degrees of fluency, which allows him to teach meditation to people of different faiths - Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs - from within their own scriptural and meditative traditions..
A prolific writer and speaker, he is the author of numerous books, including Super conscious Meditation, Mantra and Meditation, Meditation and the Art of Dying, Philosophy of Hatha Yoga, God, Sayings, and Yoga-sutras of Patanjali. Swami Veda is a poet, scholar, research guide and international speaker par excellence
