Board of Directors & Advisors

Meet our dedicated board and volunteer advisors who give so much to support our work.

  • Jenifer Cartland, PhD - Vice President / Secretary

    Jenifer is a dedicated student of yoga and is committed to supporting the strategic efforts of YogaCare. She serves as the Vice President for Data Analytics and Reporting at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and as a research associate professor at the Northwestern University Medical School. Jenifer received her doctorate in political science from Loyola University of Chicago and has worked for almost 30 years as a public policy analyst focusing on child and adolescent health and welfare issues. Jenifer taught Program Evaluation in Northwestern University’s master’s program in public health for many years. Much of her research has involved working collaboratively with community organizations to improve their capacity to provide services to children and adolescents. Jenifer served as YogaCare’s President from 2018-2020.

  • Ruthann Gagnon - President

    Ruthann has been an active Board Member for well over 1 year and demonstrates strong collaborative leadership and passion for YogaCare's mission. Ruthann comes to us with a background in women’s public healthcare, hospitality, marketing, sales, and technology start-ups, all with a focus on new framework implementation, leadership development, and creative strategy/execution.

    She has worked as Program Director for the Title X federal grant disbursement for the state of Missouri, Marketing and Sales Director for Lettuce Entertain You, and first-round hire for two technology start-ups in sales and account operations roles. Ruthann currently focuses her work on helping individuals, teams and businesses work more deeply with their creativity / creative process to facilitate deeper alignment with their personal and collective process, goals, and dreams.

    Ruthann’s intention as a Board President is to be a responsive listener and guide as YogaCare continues to expand its mission. Her creative solutions approach and unique perspective from her time with non-profits, government grants, the private sector, and start-ups offer new lenses on not only how to work towards an organizational mission, but to continue to ask the questions that will give space for the YC mission to grow and change as the needs of the collective grow and change.

    She is very excited to further harness her experience and gifts to steward the role of Board President for YogaCare and has been so grateful for this powerful community of amazing people over the last year.

    Contact: Ruthann ruthanngagnon@gmail.com

  • Sydney Tsai, Board Member / Treasurer

    Sydney is a business professional dedicated to promoting the benefits of yoga for the mind and body. He is an MBA Candidate at the University of Chicago Booth School of business with a focus on strategy, finance, and general management. During the day, he works as a Senior Business Development Manager where he helps organizations achieve their strategic initiatives and improve their business processes. He brings valuable experience in strategic financial planning for long-term growth and sustainability. As a yoga practitioner with a body as “stiff as a board,” he has firsthand experience with the physical quality of life improvements yoga can bring while providing mental balance in a hectic lifestyle as a part-time student and full-time professional. He believes everyone can benefit from yoga and is committed to sharing it with those who may need it the most.

  • Alissa Catiis, LCSW, RYT-500 / Director, Board Member

    Alissa Catiis (she/her/hers), LCSW, RYT-500 is a psychotherapist, yoga teacher, and consultant who specializes in working with trauma survivors. Her clinical interests include working with people of color and folks in the LGBTQIA+ community, and she understands that identifying as a trauma survivor can lead to additional marginalization in society. She teaches trauma-sensitive yoga as well as contemplative practice to both her clients and to other clinicians. She is also a certified EMDR therapist and does anti-racism consulting work. Currently, Alissa works at the Howard Brown Health Counseling Center in Chicago and at Women care Counseling Center in Evanston, Illinois. She recently opened her own organization called Catiis Care & Consulting Collective.

  • Yoli Maya Yeh - Director, SEYN Co-Founder & Co-Leader

    Yoli is a Yoga & Shiatsu Therapist (AOBTA, VYASA, Yoga for the Special Child) and an Educator in Comparative Religions and Global Studies (MA Comparative Religious Ethics). Yoli works at the intersection of Indigenous Preservation, Healing Arts, and Social Justice through the design and implementation of experiential education-based Decolonization, Dialogue, Collaboration, and Community Implementation Toolkits. Raised in her family's Native American spiritual teachings, Yoli spent twelve years of her young adulthood studying language, yoga, tantra, healing arts, and meditation in India. A native of Chicago, she blends her understanding of Indigenous wisdom teachings, mind-body science, yogic discipline, and play into innovative learning programs for all ages and abilities. Yoli is a co-founder of SEYN and a current board member of YogaCare. www.yogawithyoli.com

 Advisors

Aggie Stewart, MA, C-IAYT - Advisor, Former Director

Aggie brings a plethora of knowledge from a variety of backgrounds: as a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, writer, editor, and writing teacher. Aggie is a writer trained as a yoga teacher at the 500-hour level (2009) and as a yoga therapist (2011) at the American Viniyoga Institute, Essential Yoga Therapy, the Integrative Restoration Institute (IRI) and the Amala School of Prenatal Yoga. In 2017, she also became an accredited Buteyko Breathing Method provider. Her past experience includes being the Accreditation Manager for International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). Aggie also worked in healthcare publishing and for healthcare organizations such as Children's Hospital, Boston, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, and the Joint Commission. She has taught writing and communication skills at Loyola University, Chicago, and Johnson and Wales University in Providence, RI. She incorporates her love of art, creativity, and the natural world into all levels of her work and has published several articles and blog posts on the Yoga of Writing and is writing a book on the subject. Aggie served on YogaCare’s Board of Directors from 2016-2020.

Ayoka Mitchell, YogaCare Alumna

Ayoka is a compassionate empath who believes that love is the greatest force in the universe. Ayoka has a 30-year career history as a Respiratory Therapist. Ayoka wanted to introduce the benefits of yoga to her respiratory patients to live a more healthy lifestyle and to manage their conditions. The discipline of yoga focuses on the central nature of breath and different defined breathing techniques. Ayoka also is a woman and person of color who has witnessed and experienced the trauma that can be exhibited to people of color in society. It is her hope to bring the therapeutic modality of yoga to people who would never think of taking a yoga class. Yoga is such an excellent modality to heal the trauma that is trapped in the body. Ayoka wants to reach out to people that are in homeless shelters, prisons, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, community health centers and other underserved areas. She has had excellent, life-changing training of Yoga teacher training at Marigold Yoga, therapeutic Yoga training at LifeForce Yoga, Yoga for Depression, MBSR training Training at Breathing Spaces in Chicago, and Baptiste Yoga for Kids Training Program, "Unstoppable.”

Eileen Robertson Hamra, Advisor

Eileen Robertson Hamra is an author, speaker, yogi, and impact investor. As CEO of Fit Together, LLC, Eileen provides lifestyle and business coaching to individuals and companies looking to explore and expand what is possible for themselves, their businesses, and the future of the planet. Eileen lives in Chicago with her four children, husband, and big dog. Eileen shares YogaCare's passion for expanding access to yoga to heal and improve the health of our underserved communities. She has first-hand experience of the transformative power of yoga on trauma. She believes YogaCare’s programs have exciting potential to make a positive and lasting impact to heal our community.

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Kimberly White, Fundraising Committee Advisor

White received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Communication Studies from Northwestern University and her J.D. from the University of Notre Dame School of Law. She is a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional (CCEP) awarded by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) Compliance Certification Board, and became a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) in June 2019. Ms. White also holds a Certification in Spanish as a Second Language (Level C1) awarded by the Cervantes Institute in 2017.

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Dr. Larry Turner, PsyD, RN, CADC, C-IAYT, Yoga Therapist & Employee Wellness Trainer, Advisor

Dr. Larry Turner is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Registered Nurse (ER/Psych), Substance Abuse Therapist, and Certified Yoga Therapist. He has worked with survivors of a variety of traumatic experiences in Chicago and the world wide community. While working in Chicago, he has developed programs for traumatized children and adolescents in hospitals, schools and churches. On the global scale, Dr. Turner provided medical and psychological services to victims of Hurricane Katrina / Rita in 2005. He was in Haiti after the Haitian earthquake in 2010 and most recently in Sierra Leone as part of the world wide Ebola response. He teaches yoga and applies therapeutic and trauma-informed practices to groups in various YogaCare programs and is an advisor and lead trainer in YogaCare’s Self-Care Training and SkillShare programming.

Mary Beth Johnson, Advisor, Teacher

Leading from a lens of social justice, sustainability, and wellness, Mary Beth's experiences include managing community engagement and partnerships with World Bicycle Relief, Whole Foods Market, Rotary International, and more. She has overseen grassroots events, community relations, fundraising, brand awareness, corporate social responsibility programs., strategic partnerships, and grant programs that broke down barriers to education, economic opportunities, and clean water and sanitation.  She's a founding member of Playmakers, the associate board of Playworks IL, a nonprofit that promotes the power of play, and she has been teaching yoga for over five years most recently launching “Yoga to Flatten the Curve” at the beginning of the pandemic to support student's yoga journey online. She hugs as many trees as she can during her trail running and hiking.