LoveYourBrain Training Faculty
Kyla Pearce, MPH, PhD, E-RYT-200, CBIS
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Native Land Acknowledgement and Today-Known-As Location: The ancestral lands of the Abenaki people, today known as Vermont
My Superhero Is: Anyone who leans into adversity for learning and growth.
Kyla has blended her expertise as a yoga teacher and researcher to develop a TBI-focused yoga curriculum that integrates gentle yoga, meditation, pranayama, and psychoeducation. This curriculum, now offered in yoga studios across the United States and Canada, is designed based on the science underpinning resilience, and empowers people with TBI to become more active participants in their healing process.
Training: Since the inception of the LYB Yoga program in 2015, Kyla has trained over 2,500 yoga teachers and clinicians in how to adapt yoga, meditation, and pranayama for TBI, including physical, cognitive, and social modifications. Kyla leads comprehensive in-person and online trainings designed for yoga teachers, clinicians, and TBI advocates who want to gain knowledge and skills in how to adapt these practices to address the unique needs of those with brain injury. Kyla recently completed a two-year intensive Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program overseen by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. She has completed trainings in vinyasa, ashtanga, adaptive yoga with Matthew Sanford, Lakshmi Voelker Chair Yoga, iRest Level 1 and 2 yoga nidra, Advanced Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness with David Treleavan, Yin Yoga and Mindfulness Meditation with Sagel Urchel, Self-Compassion with Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, among others.
Teaching: Kyla has been teaching yoga, pranayama, and meditation to groups of individuals with TBI and their support people since 2014. She has been an invited faculty at several conferences related to using yoga for improving physiological and psychosocial outcomes, including at the Yoga for Traumatic Stress Conference in Sedona, AZ and the Yoga Service Conference in Rhinebeck, NH. Kyla also curates and contributes to the LoveYourBrain Foundation’s Meditation Movement, a series of TBI-focused audio-recorded meditations available for free on the LoveYourBrain Foundation’s website.
Research: Kyla completed a 3-year Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at Dartmouth College, through which she investigated the effectiveness of yoga and mindfulness for populations with neurological conditions, including TBI and MS. She also leads LoveYourBrain’s research portfolio in the application of yoga and meditation for community-based rehabilitation for TBI. She was the Primary Investigator on the largest published study of yoga for TBI, which found significant improvement in quality of life, resilience, cognition, and positive affect among 705 people with TBI who participated in the LoveYourBrain Yoga program. She also led the design and implementation of a pilot evaluation of an 8-week gentle yoga program from people affected by brain injury, published in the peer-reviewed journal, Brain Injury. She also led a qualitative study, published in Disability and Rehabilitation, exploring the experiences of participants in the LoveYourBrain Yoga program. To support clinicians to integrate yoga and meditation into their clinical practice, she also conducts academic presentations (e.g., Brain Injury Rehabilitation Conference) and in-service presentations (e.g., Craig Hospital, Shepherd Center, Scripps Memorial Hospital) describing the evidence of using these practices to support TBI rehabilitation.
Ramsay Pierce, RYT-500, RPYT, YACEP, Certified Mindfulness Instructor
Pronouns: they/them/theirs
Location: Living and paying native land tax on the unceded lands of the Abenaki, today known as Putney, VT
My Superhero Is: My Nisei grandmother, Sumiko Yeya Mansfield
As someone who identifies mixed-race, gender nonbinary, and from the in-between spaces, Ramsay knows that they cannot deny another without also denying themself, and is called to keep opening to the complexity that exists within each of us. Ramsay believes yoga is a practice that allows for just this - seeing truth and coming to know ourselves, and in doing so being able to live with greater accountability and love. Ramsay is able-bodied, navigating PTSD, mental illness and other non-visible disabilities that give them compassion and understanding for tending to the parts of each other that we may not see or fully understand.
Ramsay co-leads the LoveYourBrain Teacher Trainings to offer yoga teachers and clinicians tools in how to adapt yoga and meditation practices to be accessible for the TBI community. They offer teaching expertise to make yoga accessible, individually healing, and empowering for all students through the LoveYourBrain Yoga, Mindset, and Retreat programs.
Training: Ramsay has over 1,500 hours of training, including specialized training in yoga for self-regulation and trauma, yin yoga, restorative yoga, and they are certified through the Integrative Amrit (I AM) Method as a yoga nidra instructor. They are also a Certified Mindfulness Instructor, having trained with Rev. angel Kyodo williams and David Perrin through MNDFL. In alignment with LoveYourBrain’s commitment to make yoga more diverse, accessible and inclusive, Ramsay completed their RYT-300 training with activist, social justice warrior, anti-racism consultant and trainer, Michelle C. Johnson, focusing on the intersection of yoga and justice. They are committed to working through an intersectional lens that examines and addresses how some within the TBI community are further marginalized based on race, ethnicity, gender, and other identities that experience structural and institutional oppression.
Teaching: Ramsay has over 3,500 hours of teaching experience. They have been practicing and offering yoga, meditation and mindfulness practices for over a decade in various spaces - yoga studios, assisted living facilities, retreat programs, online classes, in labor & delivery spaces as a birth doula, facilities of incarceration, corporate workplaces, and more. They have lead and assisted the local LoveYourBrain 6-week yoga program, taught in the online LYB Mindset program, and mentor newly LYB-trained teachers across the country to enhance their professional development.
Professional: Ramsay has over a decade of experience working for nonprofits. In their role at LYB, they have stewarded yoga studios, clinical facilities, yoga teachers and clinicians across the US and Canada in learning, implementing and expanding the LYB curriculum to the TBI community. They have presented on behalf of LoveYourBrain at national conferences (Craig Hospital Brain Injury Summit) and in rehabilitation facilities (QLI, JFK Johnson, Kessler, Magee, Virginia Hospital) describing the evidence of using yoga and meditation practices to support TBI rehabilitation.
Jackie Farrell, OT, MS, OTR/L, CBIS, E-RYT-200, YACEP
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Native Land Acknowledgement and Today-Known-As Location: Jackie lives on the ancestral land of the Massachusetts and their neighbors the Wampanoag, and Nipmuc People, now known as Boston, Massachusetts.
My Superhero Is: my mom
Jackie is an occupational therapist, adaptive yoga teacher and certified brain injury specialist. As a clinician and yoga teacher, she integrates evidence based practices from her experience in neurological rehabilitation as well as applying emerging new evidence on yoga and meditation practices. Jackie has experience in all LYB programs - in-person LYB Yoga in Boston, MA, online LYB Mindset Yoga, LYB Retreats and LYB Teacher Trainings. She works for LYB managing Trainings and the Clinical Affiliate program including the Clinical Connector network.
Clinical Experience: As an occupational therapist, Jackie has experience in working in neurological rehabilitation throughout the continuum of care as well as experience in psychiatric rehabilitation with a focus on maximizing personal independence and fostering resilience. As a lifelong learner, she loves to participate in continuing education courses on topics related to neurological rehabilitation, trauma, mental health and the applications of yoga and meditation as a therapeutic modality. She presents at conferences and brain injury support groups on the benefits of yoga for brain injury including the Brain Injury Conference of Massachusetts and local brain injury support groups. Jackie is currently working towards her Doctor of Occupational Therapy with a focus on examining how yoga and meditation can improve mental health outcomes for the TBI community.
Teaching: Jackie's goal as a teacher is to encourage her students to tune in to the way their body changes everyday, and to empower her students to feel comfortable in modifying their practice based on their current needs. Jackie contributes to the LoveYourBrain Meditation Movement and LoveYourBrain Tips, both available for free on the LoveYourBrain website. From 2016-2013, Jackie offered the LYB ‘FUNdamentals’ series to over 300 individuals TBI and caregivers in the Boston area. She also offers adaptive yoga classes in the Boston area in partnership with Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and their MENTOR program. She has extensive experience teaching adaptive yoga both in-person and virtually.
Training: Following the completion of her 200-hour training, Jackie has completed over 100 hours of training in adaptive yoga through Mind Body Solutions under the direction of Matthew Sanford and is currently enrolled in their Opening Yoga Instructor Certification. She has completed a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course as a participant as well as received a certification in MBSR. She has taken courses related to the experience of trauma through the lens of a yoga teacher and a clinician including the International Trauma Conference and Neurobiology of Trauma through the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine. Through her training and experience, Jackie truly believes that everyone can do yoga.
Steph Winsor, MA, E-RYT-500, YACEP
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Native Land Acknowledgement and Today-Known-As Location: Unceded lands of the Ute, Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne and Paiute people, today known as Denver, Colorado
My Superhero Is: My Grandfather, Frank Winsor
Steph’s enthusiasm, compassion, and love of learning have a special way of brightening any room. A personal and professional commitment to supporting optimal health, healing, and spiritual opening has led her to infuse her style with material that is both light and of depth. Steph leads yoga, meditation, and educational courses that braid together traditional wisdom of the ancient East and evidence-based Western science. This is often done alongside her sense of humor and through metaphor. Steph recently obtained a Master's degree in Psychology and Spirituality from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2020. Her studies and research are rooted in the efficacy of integrative health interventions, Yoga, neurorehabilitation, and psychology. Steph leads and assists the LoveYourBrain ‘FUNdamentals’ series in Denver, has offered meditations in our Mindful March Meditation Challenge, co-leads LoveYourBrain Yoga Teacher Training, and facilitates the LoveYourBrain Yoga + Mindset Program online. The LoveYourBrain value that she most intimately represents is “Be FUN”! Ultimately, Steph believes play is the greatest form of research, and your life is your greatest experiment.
Training and Education: Steph is an E-RYT-500 and YACEP, which has created a path for her to honor the importance of personal practice and training. Steph’s love of learning began as a child in the Unitarian Universalist church where connection, spiritual practice, and diversity were strong, narrative guideposts for development. As a student, Steph has extensive training in meditation, pranayama, restorative yoga, vinyasa asana, chair yoga practices, yoga nidra, kundalini, functional anatomy, and therapeutics for one-on-one yoga teaching. Steph originally took the LoveYourBrain Yoga Training in 2016 while working on a project with Lululemon Athletica, and her work with LoveYourBrain changed her life immensely! Her informal mentorship by Kyla Pearce inspired her to pursue TBI research and higher education that inherently included the power of Yoga. While serving as a Clinical Research Coordinator at New York University School of Medicine, Steph continued her passion for marrying Yoga and neurorehabilitation while grant writing, research, and training at Rusk Rehabilitation. Steph presented her Master’s Thesis, “Quality of Life in TBI Caregivers: A Retrospective Review of LoveYourBrain Yoga”, in May, 2020, and was awarded special recognition. She has a Masters of Arts in Clinical Psychology and Education, with a minor in Mind Body Practices and Spirituality from Teachers College, Columbia University (New York, New York). In alignment with LoveYourBrain’s commitment to make yoga more diverse, accessible and inclusive, Steph has taken Yoga and Social Justice training with Chelsea Jackson Roberts and Shane Roberts of Red Clay Yoga.
Teaching: Similar to the yogic path, Steph shares as often as she learns - which is always. She has been mentoring and training yoga teachers since 2013. These days, Steph leads 300-hr advanced teacher certification, special format trainings, and meditation specific teacher trainings. She is co-creator of a LoveYourBrain friendly format known as “Deep Stretch and Meditation” that was developed at a LoveYourBrain Partner Studio, The River Yoga. In leadership and service, Steph also co-leads “affordable and accessible yoga retreats for EveryBODY” with Kady Lafferty, founder of Big Booty Yoga. Steph’s teaching style is approachable, yet deep. She leads with a warm and inviting nature that makes others feel more at home on their mat and in their body.
Natasha Chaoua, CNA, RYT-500
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Location: Residing on Susquehannock, Nentego (Nanticoke) and Piscataway Territory, currently known as Columbia, MD
My Superhero Is: Everyone who has crossed my path and the lived experiences along the way.
Natasha is the descendant of two Jamaican parents, born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She moved to America in her early twenties and is married with three children. She is the founder and owner of Dubwise Yoga, offering equitable and accessible yoga practices to communities of color. Natasha has had a personal practice since 2000 and began teaching in 2018. She is currently a Pre-Nursing student leading yoga classes in-person and online.
She offers trauma informed yoga, is passionate about disabilities, mental health and mindfulness practices being accessible and readily available for all bodies and abilities. Prior to teaching Natasha spent several years working for persons with developmental disabilities. She eventually became a CNA and had the pleasure of working at Craig Hospital with those who experienced a spinal cord injury and/or traumatic brain injury as well as the neurosurgical ICU at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus.
Natasha later became a certified hatha yoga instructor and alumni of Satya Yoga Cooperative, an accessible yoga teacher as well as a registered yoga teacher (RYT) with Yoga Alliance. She completed Skill in Action – Yoga + Social Justice 300hr yoga teacher training, as well as level 1 and 2 adaptive yoga training. Natasha became a certified LoveYourBrain yoga instructor, facilitator and joined their training team supporting and sharing the benefits of yoga and meditation with the TBI community. She currently contributes to their YTTs as well as their six week Mindset programs for those who have experienced a traumatic brain injury and their caregivers.
Private and small group instruction is also available. Collaborations with community partners are welcomed.
Renee (RJ) Lisander, Wellness Counselor, Founder Lotus Seed Lifestyles and Lotus Seed Meditations, E-RYT-200, IAYT-200
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Location: Living on the native lands of the Occaneechi, today known as Chapel Hill, NC
My Superhero Is: Always the person who understands where they are, sees the possibility of where they can go, and who then leans into the invitation to grow.
As someone who sustained two traumatic brain injuries in her teens, RJ, now in her 50s, has experienced the myriad ways TBI affects the person, family and friends through all aspects of learning, movement, and life. Whether it is the initial healing phase or the challenges and effects of a TBI as an individual ages, RJ looks at life through the lens of grace on the more difficult days and joy on the days when things go as hoped. RJ’s yoga practice promotes a sense of awareness as play and discovery while on the mat. What she learns about herself on the mat is reflected in the way she leads classes and discussion with compassion, humor and an authentic acceptance of the imperfect and resilient nature of being human.
RJ is a certified wellness counselor through Cornell University, and founded a studio where she works with individual clients who, like her, have found that moving with the body in all stages of healing, whether it is from an injury, illness, trauma or chronic disease requires patience and courage. She has worked with LoveYourBrian for 4 years as teacher and mentor in the studio and online 6-week yoga series and retreat programs. RJ joins the LoveYourBrain Yoga Teacher Training Team with an eye toward offering yoga teachers and clinicians insight into the ways yoga and meditation adapted for TBI can help those living with TBI to practice with confidence, deeper understanding, and compassion for self and others.
Training: RJ has over 750 hours of yoga training including trainings in Vinyasa yoga, yoga therapy, trauma informed yoga, pre- and post-natal yoga, yin, restorative and Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra. She is a Master Practitioner of Shamanic Reiki. RJ completed a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course and has completed LoveYourBrain L1, L2, and multiple LoveYourBrain online courses for Mindset and Facilitation. She will soon complete her Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification with Sean Fargo.
Teaching: RJ has over 10 years of teaching experience. She has been offering yoga, meditation and mindfulness practices, lectures, discussions, and workshops in yoga studios, hospitals, assisted living facilities, retreat programs, corporate, outdoor, and online settings nationally and internationally. She helped establish the first LoveYourBrain affiliated studio in North Carolina, has led LoveYourBrain 6-week yoga programs, teaches in the LoveYourBrain Mindset program as a facilitator and mentor instructor, and leads mindset, yoga, and meditation sessions with LoveYourBrain Retreats. She was also a teacher in the 2021 LoveYourBrain Mindful March Meditation campaign.
Professional: Coming to yoga later in life, RJ has a combined 15 years of experience as an event planner and university and retained executive recruiter for non-profits, start-ups and corporate entities in Washington, DC, Northern Virginia and North Carolina. In 2018 RJ founded Lotus Seed Lifestyles and Lotus Seed Meditations as ways to promote yoga and meditation spaces offering support, community and insight into how the human spirit heals through the practices of mindful movement and stillness.
Claudette Evans, E-RYT-500, YACEP
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Native Land Acknowledgement and Today-Known-As Location: Claudette lives, plays and works on the unceded territory of the Puyallup, Nisqually, Steilacoom, Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla Tribes, collectively known as the Coast Salish Peoples. Today, this area is called Tacoma, Washington.
My Superhero Is: My daughter, Lily Evans; my husband Lucas Smiraldo, and all of the students who have taught and inspired me via their lived experience.
Training and Education: Claudette, an E-RYT-500 and YACEP, with more than two decades of study in yoga, has cultivated a depth of knowledge and experience that she shares with folks every day. In her classes, she invites curious practitioners toward an experience of greater strength, sensitivity, freedom, skillfulness, and wisdom, so that they can cultivate greater connection in their lives. Claudette sees yoga as an invitation to know ourselves more intimately so that we can live with more peace, inside and out. Mostly able-bodied, Claudette is living with asthma, and perimenopause, which has helped her cultivate greater patience and compassion for the breadth of the human experience. Her nerdy enjoyment of yoga philosophy, coupled with her decades of study in Western classical voice, has moved her to study the Sanskrit language, Vedic Chanting, and Mantra, further encouraging her to explore how these practices, which serve to deepen one’s concentration and focus, can be used to support cognitive function and brain health.
Claudette was first introduced to LoveYourBrain in 2019 when she was invited, as a studio administrator for 8 Limbs Yoga Centers, to organize and host the LYB visit to Seattle. A few months later, in early-2020, she completed the LoveYourBrain Level I Yoga Training, an experience that changed her life, and illuminated the myriad ways yoga could help heal and support the students in her community.
Claudette shares LoveYourBrain’s commitment to make yoga more diverse, accessible, and inclusive. She was one of the founding trainers for Yoga Behind Bars’ Teacher Training Behind Bars, co-developing the curriculum for the landmark program that trained a dozen women and eight men living in incarceration in Washington State prisons over a two year period. Over the years, she has completed multiple trainings that meet at the intersection of yoga and social justice, including trainings with author, activist, social justice warrior, anti-racism consultant and yoga teacher, Michelle Cassandra Johnson, as well as embodied social justice and Radical Dharma trainings with Rev. angel Kyodo williams.
Claudette has extensive training in asana, pranayama, meditation, yoga nidra, Restorative Yoga, trauma-aware yoga, accessible and chair yoga practices, functional anatomy, myofascial activation, yoga therapeutics, yoga philosophy, Sanskrit, chanting and mantra. Claudette co-leads LoveYourBrain Teacher Training programs, LYB Yoga, LYB Mindset, and LYB Retreat programs.
Teaching: Claudette completed her first yoga teacher training program in 2009 and has been training and mentoring emerging yoga teachers since 2013. Today, she leads 200-hr and 300-hr yoga certification programs, as well as specialized offerings in Sanskrit, Chanting, Mantra Meditation, and Restorative Yoga, throughout the Pacific Northwest and around the globe. She is a lead trainer and teacher mentor for 8 Limbs Yoga Centers, as well as a guest trainer and facilitator for over a dozen yoga schools throughout North America, and is a Yoga and Movement Instructor in the Dance and Theater Departments at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Claudette's classes create space for self-expression through body and voice, cultivate a clarity of focus, and foster a joy of movement. Through her teaching, she aims to create experiences of joy and healing that enable people to live fully and authentically, moving bravely and boldly toward their purpose.
Professional: Claudette came to yoga after working for more than 15 years in the arts as a performer and non-profit administrator in both New York, NY and Seattle, WA. In 2008, Claudette co-founded the Guiding Lights Network and the Guiding Lights Weekend, a uniquely powerful annual conference celebrating lifelong learning, mentoring, imagination, and community engagement. The annual event highlighted the work of national and community leaders and the vital role everyday people can play in creating a vibrant civic life. Today, the Guiding Lights Weekend is known as Citizen University.
Tracey Meyers, Psy.D, C-IAYT, E-RYT-500, CBIST
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Native Land Acknowledgement and Today-Known-As Location: The ancestral lands of the Mohegan Podunk people, today known as Eastern Connecticut
My Superhero Is: All of those living with brain injuries and neurodegenerative conditions who demonstrate resilience, courage, and compassion on a daily basis.
Tracey has a passion for integrating mindfulness, yoga, and breath practices into mental health and behavioral health settings. She is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience in the areas of neuropsychological assessment, psychotherapy, teaching, and consulting to private non-profit mental health organizations. She has worked in a number of behavioral health settings including inpatient and outpatient psychiatry, rehabilitation hospitals, online teleneurology platforms, along with a small private practice.
Training: Tracey completed two Yoga alliance approved 500 Yoga Teacher Trainings in 2012-2013 (Pranakriya and Insight Yoga) and became an endorsed Insight Yin Yoga teacher under Sarah Powers, one of only of 18 teachers with this designation across the world. She is a certified iRest teacher under Richard Miller, Ph.D. and Breath Body Mind teacher under Patricia Gerbarg and Richard Brown, MD. She completed her certification in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in 2008 at University of Massachusetts Medical Center. She became a LoveYourBrain teacher following her teacher training at Kripalu in 2018. In 2021, Tracey completed a two-year intensive Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program overseen by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. In 2023, she became a certified Mindful Self-Compassion teacher under the direction of Kristen Neff and Christopher Germer. She has completed additional trainings in Advanced Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness with David Treleavan in 2022-2023. Tracey is trained in a number of psychological modalities including Internal Family Systems, EMDR, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Compassion-Focused psychotherapy.
Teaching: Tracey has been teaching yoga, pranayama, and meditation to individuals and groups living with TBI since she became a registered yoga teacher in 2008. In addition, she has taught many mindfulness-based stress reduction and self-compassion 8-week programs and workshops to the general public as well people living with TBI, mental health challenges, and other neurodegenerative diseases. She is an adjunct professor in the Master’s Degree in Yoga Therapy program at Maryland University of Integrative Health (MUIH) since the program began in 2016 teaching courses on yoga, psychotherapy, and clinical skills. She has taught the LoveYourBrain 6-week yoga program, taught in the online LYB Mindset program and been a regular LYB presenter since 2018 and has contributed to the LYB repository of mindfulness and breath practices for participants to utilize.
Research: She authored several publications and book chapters around holistic behavioral treatment for mental health conditions. She is the author of the recently released book, Yin Yoga Therapy and Mental Health (Singing Dragon, 2022).
Professional: Tracey a licensed clinical psychologist in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. She is currently employed at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (LCL) in Massachusetts, a lawyer assistance program where she focuses on lawyer wellbeing and mental health and along with her position as a clinical neuropsychologist for Synapticure, a teleneurology company providing care to people living with neurogenerative conditions including ALS, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
Tracey was previously worked for the State of Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services where she spent 17 years working as a clinical neuropsychologist working with clients with learning disabilities, attention-deficit disorder, traumatic brain injury, and developmental and brain-based disorders providing neuropsychological assessment, group and individual psychotherapy, and positive behavioral support planning.