Siri Bhagvati / Billie Atherstone has been working in the field of health sciences and yoga for 20 years.  She is a Kundalini Yoga Therapist and teacher, a Professional KRI Teacher Trainer and works as a Kinesiologist and Bowen Therapist.  She lives in Melbourne, Australia and is the co-owner of Kundalini House, a Complementary Health Clinic and Yoga Studio.  She and her sister opened the business in 2006 with the vision to create a center where people could be supported to meet their health and well-being outcomes with yoga and a wide range of body and talking therapies, including acupuncture, psychology and yoga therapy. (www.kundalinihouse.com.au)

Since 2014, Siri Bhagvati has focused on Yoga Therapy with the Guru Ram Das Center (grdcenter.org) and is a member of the faculty team, teaching open courses and courses within its professionally accredited Kundalini Yoga Therapy training.  In her clinical work, she has been successfully running specialized courses and one on ones for people in the recovery of trauma, PTSD and health recovery.

Interoception

Dr. Sat Bir is organizing the event, but won’t be presenting a lecture in this symposium

Keval Kaur Khalsa, M.A., RYT-500, is a Kundalini Research Institute Level I Lead Trainer and Mentoring Coach with over 25 years of teaching experience across North and South America and Africa. She has trained Kundalini Yoga teachers throughout the U.S. and in Accra, Ghana, and leads Kundalini Yoga Durham, a donation-based, inclusive community space in North Carolina.

Inspired by Krishna Kaur, Keval Kaur co-founded North Carolina’s Y.O.G.A. for Youth program in 2007, bringing yoga and meditation to young people across four counties. She helped develop the program’s 46-hour online training and serves on its Board of Directors.

A Professor of the Practice Emerita of Dance at Duke University, she taught for 32 years, directed the Dance Program, and co-led research on yoga’s impact on students’ stress and well-being. A devoted mother and grandmother, she is also passionate about social and environmental activism and spending time in nature.

Title of my lecture: Y.O.G.A. for Youth—Empowering the Next Generation
Title of my breakout session:  Bringing Yoga to Youth in Under-Resourced Communities

Shanti Shanti Kaur Khalsa, PhD, C-IAYT, aligns the ancient teachings of Kundalini Yoga with modern medicine as Founding Director of the Guru Ram Das Center for Medicine & Humanology. She developed and directs the 800-hour IAYT accredited International Kundalini Yoga Therapy Professional Training. Dr. Khalsa brings Kundalini Yoga Therapy to refugees from conflict areas and trains Kundalini Yoga teachers to bring trauma-responsive practices to civilians and military personnel.

Born in 1966, Daniel Dueñas began his career studying Agricultural Engineering in Córdoba, but a book about Matthieu Ricard—the “happiest man in the world”—sparked a lifelong journey into meditation. In 2009, after moving to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, he left engineering behind and immersed himself in Zen practice. A vivid dream about colors led him to explore chakras and Kundalini Yoga, eventually shifting from Zen to Kundalini meditation for its transformative power.

In 2012, he began studying psychology and Kundalini Yoga simultaneously, becoming a certified teacher in 2013 and launching his own classes in 2014. Alongside, he trained in Karam Kriya numerology with Shiv Charan and completed his psychology degree in 2017. Combining psychology, meditation, and numerology, he developed an innovative therapeutic approach for depression and anxiety with remarkable results.

In 2020, he moved with his family to Gothenburg, Sweden, where he continues teaching and offering online therapy. Now a published author of Love Is and The Dance of Life and Death, writing has become his true vocation.

As a teenager, Alan Weiss met Yogi Bhajan and became a Kundalini Yoga teacher. After completing medical school, he pursued a career in surgery, medical education, and medical governance. He enjoys sharing what he has learned about yoga and medicine.

Gurujagat Kaur Ronen is a Level One Lead Trainer and a specialist in Conscious Maternity & Yoga Doula Training. Born in 1954, she has devoted her life to supporting women through every stage of motherhood. Her journey began in 1975 in Amsterdam, where she spent 11 years in Europe’s only Kundalini Yoga Ashram, immersing herself in yoga, meditation, women’s health, and Seva. Long before the word “doula” became known, she was already accompanying mothers with deep listening, nurturing care, and the teachings of pregnancy and postnatal yoga.
A mother of four and grandmother of eight, her personal experience of Ayurvedic massage, nourishing food, and ritual support after childbirth profoundly shaped her understanding of maternal well-being. This led her to found the Yoga Doula School in 2007, co-found the International Postnatal Support Network in 2012, and the Mothering the Mother Collective in 2021.
Now based in France, she continues to train compassionate companions and share her work internationally, honoring women’s innate strength to give birth and nurture life with consciousness and love.

Helen Lavretsky, MD, MS is a Professor In-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA and a geriatric integrative psychiatrist with the federally funded research program in integrative mental health using mind-body therapies. She is a recipient of many prestigious research awards. Her current research studies include investigations of novel therapeutic options for caregiver stress, mood, and cognitive disorders in older adults, and Long-COVID. She is the Director of Research for the UCLA Integrative Medicine Collaborative and the Integrative Psychiatry program. She is an immediate past-President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

Julie K. Staples, Ph.D. (Guru Parkash Kaur) is the Research Director at The Center for Mind-Body Medicine, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, and a faculty member of the International Kundalini Yoga Therapy Professional Training program. She has conducted research in mind-body medicine for traumatized populations for almost 30 years. Her self-help book Reclaiming Life after Trauma teaches Kundalini Yoga and cognitive behavioral therapy tools to heal trauma symptoms. She is also the author of the yoga chapter in the medical school textbook Fundamentals of Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Mukta Kaur Khalsa, Ph.D., Director of SuperHealth® established in 1973, is a Nationally Certified and Licensed Professional Mental Health, Drug and Addictions Counselor. She is the Chief Presidential Authority as an NGO in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Mukta conducts worldwide trainings on SuperHealth technology for healthcare professionals and yoga teachers. Her publications include a research article in the Journal of Ethnicity and Substance Abuse, her books, “Meditations for Addictive Behavior,” “Healing Addictive Behavior,” “Curb the Urge,” “Parenting with Confidence,” and the SuperHealth manuals.  

Raghurai Singh has been a resident in London since 1984. He has been teaching Kundalini Yoga since 1999. He is currently a Level One Lead Trainer in Spain and Italy and completed Level Two and Level Three. Author and designer of the Silver Age: Chair Yoga program for 55+ people and those with mobility problems based on Yogi Bhajan’s kriyas. He taught chair yoga at a local hospital and in day centers for 15 years. He has a bachelor’s degree in European Politics & Economics and a master’s degree in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy from the University of London. He works privately and for two London NGOs as a clinical supervisor of psychotherapy. He speaks fluent Spanish and English and conversational French.

Sónia Isabel Remondes Costa, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education and Psychology at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal. She holds a Bachelor’s in Clinical and Counseling Psychology from Lusófona University, a Diploma of Advanced Studies and a Doctorate in Clinical and Health Psychology from the University of Salamanca, and a postgraduate degree in Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis from the University of Lisbon.
Since 2003, she has taught in undergraduate and graduate psychology programs, covering clinical intervention, health education, group dynamics, oncological psychology, and professional practice. She has also worked in primary health care and at the Portuguese League Against Cancer, bridging academic and clinical practice.
Her research focuses on mind-body therapies (hypnosis, relaxation, yoga, meditation), health promotion, spirituality, grief, and palliative care, particularly through psychoexistential approaches such as Meaning of Life Therapy. She is a member of the Portuguese Psychologists Association and has supervised internships since 2012.