Shirley Telles has a degree in conventional medicine (MBBS) and a MPhil and PhD in Neurophysiology. Both MPhil and PhD theses were on the effects of yoga practice. Dr. Telles received a Fulbright fellowship in 1998 and in 2001 an award from the Templeton Foundation for creative ideas in neurobiology. In 2007 she received an Indian Council of Medical Research Center for Advanced Research to study meditation’s effects through autonomic variables, evoked and event related potentials, polysomnography and fMRI. Dr Telles is the director of Patanjali Research Foundation, Haridwar, India; since 2007. Dr. Telles has over 200 research papers on yoga cited in bibliographic databases and edited 7 books on yoga. She is an enthusiastic practitioner of yoga.
Yoga Alliance Board Member Saraswathi Vasudevan (E-RYT 500, YACEP) is an internationally renowned yoga leader and trainer with two Master’s degrees in Nutrition and Psychology from the University of Madras in Chennai. For 28 years, she has been a yoga teacher, teacher-trainer, therapist, and consultant. Previously, Saraswathi was head of the research department at an internationally renowned institute of yoga in Chennai and has conducted workshops around the world on yoga and the emerging field of yoga therapy. Saraswathi founded YogaVahini with a goal to make the healing wisdom of yoga more accessible to everyone.
Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of yoga research for the Yoga Alliance who has conducted research on yoga for mental health conditions and in workplace and school settings.
Dr. Khalsa is the Director of Yoga Research for Yoga Alliance and has conducted scientific yoga research since 2001 on yoga for insomnia, stress, anxiety disorders, and workplace and school settings.