Scientific Research on Yoga Blog Contributors

A yoga practitioner since 1971, Dr. Khalsa’s journey led him to becoming a Research Associate at the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, a Research Affiliate at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Additionally, Dr. Khalsa serves as the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy, a medical editor of the Harvard Medical School Special Report, “An Introduction to Yoga,” the chief editor of the medical textbook, The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care, and the chair of the scientific program committee for the annual Symposium on Yoga Research.

Dr. Khalsa has committed his professional life to clinical research surrounding yoga’s full spectrum of healing efficacy and to sharing his findings with the broader yoga and medicine communities. This includes a particularly engaged focus on clinical research trials evaluating yoga interventions for insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic stress, and anxiety in both public school and occupational settings.

Yoga Alliance is honored Dr. Khalsa has offered his wisdom and expertise to help support our members in supporting and fostering high quality, safe, accessible, and equitable yoga teaching.

Kim Weeks (RYS 200, RYS 500, E-RYT 500, CEP) is a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher and founder of the mindfulness consulting and education company Weeks Well. Kim has been teaching yoga for 18 years and a student of the practice for 25. She has been a member of Yoga Alliance since 2003.

Kim first took a yoga class in Berlin at age 19, and later, in New York City, London, and Hong Kong, where she worked for JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch. She valued the practice for its portability, ability to counterbalance stress, and capacity for showing the body’s truths. After 9/11, Kim decided to leave the corporate professional world and devote herself to teaching yoga and founding a yoga center. For 12 years she owned Boundless Yoga, a top-rated studio in Washington, D.C., which trained and taught thousands of students including hundreds of RYTs.

Kim was Washington’s NBC4 local yoga expert for several years, has written for The Washington Post and Yoga Journal on mindfulness and yoga, and was featured in a PBS documentary called “None of the Above: Religious Implications.” In addition to offering mindfulness seminars and consulting to international media organizations, she also currently teaches yoga on her own platform, through Washington’s Iyengar center Unity Woods, and through the national platform YogaWorks.