My first encounter with cancer was at the age of 9 when I heard those three words, and my life was forever altered. I began practicing yoga in college and continued on and off through my late 20’s when I experienced a life-changing side effect from radiation treatment.  As one of my students like to say, “radiation is the gift that keeps on giving,” and indeed this late effect of radiation was also life-altering.  I turned to yoga more and more as a refuge, and eventually signed up for a 200hr training on the belief that it would transform my life in a positive way. Immediately following completion of 200hr training I sought out yoga4cancer.  I knew from my lived experience that yoga has a biopsychosocial impact on cancer survivors but needed to learn the skills and methodology to transform that passion into action. 

Currently, I’m a senior yoga4cancer teacher and mentor.  I teach yoga to cancer patients and survivors through Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer center and am involved in research on yoga as an intervention for chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN).  I’m also a master’s student of yoga therapy at Maryland University of Integrative Health.

My vision is to integrate yoga into cancer and make it accessible to patients at all stages of treatment.   I’m grateful for the yoga4cancer foundation for helping to make this goal possible in the foreseeable future.