Meet the Team
Board Members
Our board members guide the vision and operations of Give Back Yoga, empowering us to serve in a sustainable and effective way.
Rob Schware – Co-Founder and Executive Director
Rob Schware, PhD, heads the Give Back Yoga Foundation and is President Ex-Officio & Advisor for the Yoga Service Council.
In late 2006, Rob brought his two decades of management experience with the World Bank to a second career: helping to grow the yoga service movement. He wanted to combine his development and project management expertise in over 30 countries including India, Indonesia, Turkey, Rwanda and Palestine with his passion for yoga, by forming an organization whose mission it is to bring yoga to underserved populations. In 2013, his work of co-founding and furthering the Give Back Yoga Foundation earned him the International Association of Yoga Therapists’ Karma Yoga Award for “extraordinary selfless service in reducing suffering and elevating consciousness through yoga.” And in 2016, he received Yoga Journal’s Good Karma award.
He has been married to Alice Trembour for 34 years, which, like yoga, is in and of itself a regular commitment to a practice. They have three children.
Robert Schware
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Beryl Bender – Co-Founder and Director of The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute
World renowned yoga teacher and author Beryl Bender Birch, co-founder of the Give Back Yoga Foundation, has been an avid student of yoga and the study of consciousness since 1971. She holds degrees in English and philosophy, has traveled extensively in India, and has taught classical yoga and Vedantic and Buddhist philosophy for four decades.
In 1980, Beryl began training yoga teachers to serve as “spiritual revolutionaries;” in 2000, she was chosen as one of just seven American women named in Yoga Journal’s “Innovators Shaping Yoga Today” issue. In 2013, her work of founding and furthering the Give Back Yoga Foundation earned her the International Association of Yoga Therapists’ Karma Yoga Award for “extraordinary selfless service in reducing suffering and elevating consciousness through yoga.”
Beryl is the director-founder of The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute and the author of the best-selling books Power Yoga, Beyond Power Yoga, and Boomer Yoga. Her latest book, Yoga For Warriors, was released in September 2014.
Beryl Bender
Co-Founder and Director of The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute
Chelsea Roff – Co-Executive Director
Chelsea is the Co-Executive Director of the Give Back Yoga Foundation. An educator, researcher, and yoga therapist, she has spent nearly a decade developing and scaling yoga programs for people with mental illness.
For the past ten years, Chelsea has served as Senior Program Director for Eat Breathe Thrive, a Give Back Yoga Foundation Legacy Program which provides yoga to people with eating disorders. In 2013, Chelsea raised $50,000 in fifty days to launch the organization in a widely-publicized rooftop crowdfunding campaign. Since its inception, she has brought the organization to scale in thirty-two U.S states and over a dozen countries.
Prior to her work in the charitable sector, Chelsea worked as a researcher and grant writer in a psychoneuroimmunology laboratory. She is currently overseeing a multi-study research initiative on yoga in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders, which includes two randomized controlled trials.
Chelsea is an avid swimmer and triathlete, and in her spare time studies Arabic and travels in her campervan. She lives in London, where she also serves as Director of the Give Back Yoga Foundation UK.
Chelsea Roff
Co-Executive Director and Board Member
Isabella de La Houssaye
Isabella de la Houssaye has worked extensively around the world for the past 30 years. She first worked as an international project finance lawyer for White & Case, then as an investment banker based in the Hong Kong office of Lehman Brothers. She is currently the owner of Material Culture, a Philadelphia-based importer, retailer and auctioneer of art, antiques and traditional crafts from around the world.
Isabella has been an ultra distance competitive runner, biker and triathlete for the past twenty years and embraced yoga, meditation and mindfulness as the path to health and wellness approximately ten years ago. She has completed more than 500 hours of teacher training through Princeton Power Yoga and volunteers regularly teaching yoga and mindfulness skills to teenagers. Isabella has a BA from Princeton University, a JD from Columbia Law School and is a Trustee of Princeton in Asia, and an Advisor to the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Students on Ice. She is married to David Crane and they have five children.
Isabella de la Houssaye
Board Member
Andres Gonzalez
Andres Gonzalez has been the Co-Founder and Marketing Director for the Holistic Life Foundation, Inc. in Baltimore, Maryland since 2001. For sixteen years, Andres has taught yoga to diverse populations in drug treatment centers, mental crisis facilities, homeless shelters, wellness centers, colleges, and public and private schools throughout the world.
Andres holds a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Maryland, College Park and an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland, University College. He is a certified Health Coach through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Andres has partnered with John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health and the Penn State’s Prevention Research Center on a Stress and Relaxation Study and is a published author in the Journal of Children’s Services. His work with the Holistic Life Foundation has been featured on NBC Nightly News, CNN, and CBS, as well as O the Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, Upworthy, Mindful Magazine, Yoga Journal, and Shambhala Sun.
Andres Gonzalez
Board Member
Joan Schiml
Joan has been practicing yoga for over twenty years and teaching for ten. In addition to weekly asana classes, she has led yoga classes with veterans, law enforcement, and youth. She’s the president of Dayton Yoga Club, a not-for-profit yoga studio in Dayton, Ohio that focuses on making yoga accessible to all. In addition to being a certified yoga teacher, she is also a Reiki practitioner.
In her professional life, Joan is a development professional and has been helping organizations achieve their goals and advance their missions through philanthropic means for close to 25 years. She currently serves the homeless youth population through her work at a specialized shelter and mental health agency.
In her spare time, you can find her with a camera, digging in the garden, or hiking in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Joan Schiml
Board Member
Judith Cash
Judith Cash recently retired from a 40-year career as a non-profit leader and senior executive in government. Judith has led dynamic non-profit organizations through times of change and has been a senior federal executive at critical times in the history of the nation’s healthcare system.
Judith is also an Integrative health coach, trained at Duke Integrative Medicine, a registered yoga teacher and avid hiker, a sister, wife, mother, and grandmother. And, in her spare time, loves to travel!
Judith Cash
Board Member
Team Members
It takes a village to run a successful nonprofit yoga organization. This is our community.
Christine Moore – Mat Program Director
As Give Back Yoga’s Mat Program Director, Christine Moore helps to fuel the organization’s mission of sharing yoga with those who can benefit most. Christine’s own commitment to making yoga accessible to everyone made her a natural fit for the GBYF team. Her interest in yoga service was sparked while her son was deployed to Afghanistan. As a way of giving back and discovering more about what to expect when he returned, she started teaching yoga at the Denver VA Hospital, where she led classes for eighteen months. Teaching veterans was an unexpectedly fulfilling experience for Christine, and it became her favorite time of the week. It also inspired her interest in other underserved communities. Expanding her education, Christine participated in the Mindful Yoga Therapy and Prison Yoga Project trainings sponsored by Give Back Yoga. She has studied with Matthew Sanford and is a C-IAYT yoga therapist. Christine currently teaches yoga in Palisade, Grand Junction and Fruita Colorado and in her private, home studio. Christine is currently leading workshops for Yoga teachers in Trauma Sensitive Yoga on the Western Slope and in Utah. As well as being a yoga teacher, Christine has been a teacher of dance for 25 years, and enjoys leading her own combination yoga/dance, Shimmyasana and teaches private dance lessons at her home studio. Along with a passion for healing through movement, Christine is also a writer. She has two published articles in the Shakti Yogi Journal, and is a frequent blogger. Christine’s dance and yoga students inspire her endlessly and teach her how to move through life with more appreciation, grace and joy. Connect with Christine to enjoy her blogs and find out more about her yoga and dance journey, as well as information about classes, privates, and workshops.
Christine Moore
Mat Program Director
Claudia Cavazza – Director of Interdisciplinary Education and Program Development
Claudia Cavazza is the Director of Interdisciplinary Education and Program Development for Give Back Yoga, and a certified Yoga Teacher (RYT 500), Yoga Nidra Professional Facilitator, Certified Trauma Professional, and Certified Compassion Fatigue Professional. Claudia is passionate about delivering yoga, meditation, breathing techniques, and Yoga Nidra to populations such as veterans, first-responders, college students, and at-risk youth affected by high stress and PTSD through a carefully designed trauma-informed embodied practice.
Driven by her commitment to sharing the benefits of a trauma-informed yoga practice, as Director of Education and Training for New Millenium Employee Assistance Services, Claudia has developed resilience-focused trainings and practices for first responders in the DC metro area. In addition, for the past seven years Claudia has been serving the veteran-owned organization VEToga to provide yoga and meditation to veterans, first responders and their families.
Claudia is honored to join the GBYF team and to create innovative programs for the development and education of yoga teachers, yoga therapists, and healthcare professionals, who are committed to deliver yoga, meditation, breathwork and health practices to historically marginalized populations and with limited access.
Claudia Cavazza
Director of Interdisciplinary Education and Program Development
Chelsea Roff – Co-Executive Director
Chelsea is the Co-Executive Director of the Give Back Yoga Foundation. An educator, researcher, and yoga therapist, she has spent nearly a decade developing and scaling yoga programs for people with mental illness.
For the past ten years, Chelsea has served as Senior Program Director for Eat Breathe Thrive, a Give Back Yoga Foundation Legacy Program which provides yoga to people with eating disorders. In 2013, Chelsea raised $50,000 in fifty days to launch the organization in a widely-publicized rooftop crowdfunding campaign. Since its inception, she has brought the organization to scale in thirty-two U.S states and over a dozen countries.
Prior to her work in the charitable sector, Chelsea worked as a researcher and grant writer in a psychoneuroimmunology laboratory. She is currently overseeing a multi-study research initiative on yoga in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders, which includes two randomized controlled trials.
Chelsea is an avid swimmer and triathlete, and in her spare time studies Arabic and travels in her campervan. She lives in London, where she also serves as Director of the Give Back Yoga Foundation UK.
Chelsea Roff
Co-Executive Director
Samantha Christodoulou – Director of Operations and Creativity
Samantha Christodoulou is the Director of Operations and Creativity for the Give Back Yoga Foundation, Director of Operations and Program Facilitator for Eat Breathe Thrive, and a Certified Yoga Teacher (RYT-500). She is also proud to be a Fellow of the Mental Health Collective. Informed by her personal experience of yoga during recovery from depression, anxiety, and anorexia nervosa, Sam has an embodied understanding of the therapeutic benefits of the practice. It was her subsequent passion for a holistic approach to health and wellbeing which drew her to Eat Breathe Thrive — first, serving as a volunteer during the the widely-successful Yoga for Eating Disorders crowdfunding campaign, and later, growing into a leadership role with the organization. After contributing time on-and-off to Give Back Yoga over the years, Sam officially joined the Give Back Yoga team in late 2018. Guided by her personal and professional experiences, Sam is dedicated to empowering others with tools and practices to feel at home in their own bodies.
Samantha Christodoulou
Director of Operations and Creativity
Andrea Curtis-Amézquita – Creative and Operational Coordinator
Andrea currently supports the organization as the Creative and Marketing Coordinator. Andrea is a lover of the word AND. She is a multi-passionate person that has worked in many different industries in different capacities, including working as a royalty analyst in the music industry, an after-school instructor in a non-profit, and a creative director for entrepreneurs. Andrea’s mission is to amplify messages that can change the world; when the opportunity to work with Give Back Yoga presented itself, she knew she wanted to use all of what she had learned to carry forward the important mission of providing yoga to all communities. Having worked in a non-profit that served low-income communities, Andrea recognized the impact that wellness practices can have on those who don’t usually have access to them. While she was an instructor, Andrea taught her 2nd graders how to do light yoga and meditation after school to help them regulate their energy and she discovered it opened the door for better communication with the kids as well. When she’s not working, you can find her taking long walks in nature, drawing, eating mangoes, or traveling with her husband.
Andrea Curtis-Amézquita
Creative Coordinator
Jessica Watson - Operations Coordinator
Jessica Watson is an Operational Coordinator at Give Back Yoga Foundation. She is a Certified Yoga Teacher (YTT-200hr) with Advanced Certification in Yin Yoga (YTT-70hr). Jessica also has a Level 1 Foundation of Ayurveda Certificate. Originally from California, Jessica has traveled the world, lived and worked in Tokyo and settled in the United Kingdom with her Scottish husband and two boys. She has a degree with high honors in Art History and Conservation, owns and runs a successful technology company, is an accomplished classical pianist, teaches yin yoga to University of Winchester students and manages a household with two teenage boys.
Jessica’s passion for yoga began when a doctor recommended it as a remedy for stress and anxiety while she was at University. She became a regular practitioner, consumed many books about yoga asana and philosophy and discovered a way to manage her anxiety. Through the ups and downs of life, yoga was a constant companion that helped Jessica come back to herself from the perils of addiction and the relentlessness of anxiety. She became a yoga instructor to deepen her knowledge so she could share the therapeutic benefits of the practice with her students. Jessica teaches because she feels compelled to, because there is a deep desire to be of service and because it is her calling. Jessica is thrilled to be a part of the Give Back Yoga team and to use her strong organizational skills to help deliver programs that will benefit vulnerable people.
In Jessica’s spare time, she is a parkrun volunteer and runner, enjoys long countryside walks, is slightly obsessed with her cat, loves playing board games, is an avid reader and loves a marathon session of watching the extended version of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Jessica Watson
Operations Coordinator
Mariann Babuska - Bookkeeper
Mariann’s career began in 1980 whereupon graduating from Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan) with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, she accepted employment with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago-Detroit Branch as an internal auditor. Mariann stayed in the internal auditing field after the Federal Reserve Bank and received a Certification of Internal Auditing. She was also employed with the Port of San Diego, San Diego Trust & Savings Bank, and U of C Federal Credit Union (now Elevations Credit Union). From 2000 through the present, Mariann has operated her own accounting services business.
Mariann enjoys providing her clients with accounting services as necessary to ensure a sound set of financial records, financial reports, and guidance as needed. She works closely with her client’s management team, CPA/year-end tax accountants, and payroll processors.
When Mariann can break away from her desk and computer, she may be found in Grand Lake, Colorado enjoying all that nature has to offer in the mountains, trails, lakes, and rivers, or traveling. She is married and has two sons.
Mariann Babuska
Bookkeeper
Legacy Program Directors
Our program directors lead yoga service programs and teacher trainings that support vulnerable and under-resourced populations.
James Fox – Founder of Prison Yoga Project
James Fox
Prison Yoga Project
Suzanne Manafort – Founder of Mindful Yoga Therapy
Suzanne Manafort is the Founder and Director of Mindful Yoga Therapy, a program supported through the Give Back Yoga Foundation to help veterans find a calm and steady body and mind. Mindful Yoga Therapy protocol has been clinically studied, and is in use at 47 different VA facilities across the country. Certified yoga teachers can learn how to bring the Mindful Yoga Therapy program into their own communities through a 15-hour workshop, or into clinical settings through a 100-hour certification course. Suzanne has studied extensively with Beryl Bender Birch at The Hard and The Soft Yoga Institute, and with Patty Townsend at Yoga Center Amherst’s Embodyoga® Teacher Training programs. She serves on the faculty at both schools, and as Director of her own studio, Newington Yoga Center. Suzanne has also completed the Living Tantra and Sage programs taught by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait at the Himalayan Institute. In 2009, she was designated a Wells Fargo Second Half Champion for her work with vets. She is co-author of the Mindful Yoga Therapy for Veterans multi-media practice guide, which has been distributed free of charge to over 13,500 veterans through the Give Back Yoga Foundation. She is also the producer of three CDs: Yoga Nidra, Breathe In Breathe Out, and Resilience.
Suzanne Manafort
Mindful Yoga Therapy
Nikki Myers – Founder of Yoga of 12-Step Recovery
Nikki Myers
Yoga of 12-Step Recovery
Tari Prinster – Founder of yoga4cancer
Tari Prinster is a cancer survivor, master yoga teacher, author and founder of yoga4cancer (y4c), a yoga methodology for cancer survivors. After a cancer diagnosis in 2000, yoga became Tari’s power tool to manage cancer treatment side effects. Two decades ago, minimal research existed to explain yoga benefits. Tari got curious about how yoga worked and why doctors did not recommend yoga as part of treatment recovery. She created a methodology tailored to survivors needs, educating them how yoga provides immunity lowering recurrence risk. Tari’s organization, yoga4cancer trains yoga teachers and health care professionals around the world in this special methodology. Her book, Yoga for Cancer, available in English, Spanish and Japanese, illustrates how to manage side effects and boost immunity. Featured in the film YogaWoman and awarded Yoga Journal’s First Seva Leadership Award, Tari’s mantra is “Cancer may take your breath away. Yoga gives it back.”
Tari Prinster
yoga4cancer
Chelsea Roff – Founder of Eat Breathe Thrive
Chelsea Roff is the Founder and Director of Eat Breathe Thrive. An author, researcher, and educator, she has spent nearly a decade pioneering integrative health programs for people with mental health challenges. In 2011, Roff offered the first Yoga for Eating Disorders program to clients at a treatment center where she had once been treated for anorexia. This later became the heart of Eat Breathe Thrive: a seven-week intervention that combines yoga, meditation, and psychoeducation to help people recover from eating disorders. Two years later, she raised $50,000 in fifty days to kickstart Eat Breathe Thrive. Since its inception, she has brought the program to scale in thirty-two U.S states and seven countries. Prior to her work in the charitable sector, Chelsea worked as a researcher and grant writer in a psychoneuroimmunology laboratory. Her early research focused on how yoga affects the immune systems of people with HIV/AIDs and cancer. She is currently overseeing a research initiative on the Eat Breathe Thrive program, which will be the largest ever study on a yoga programme for eating disorders. This year, Chelsea took on an additional role as UK Operations Director for The Give Back Yoga Foundation. She is currently spearheading the initiative to bring The Give Back Yoga Foundation programs to scale in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe.
Chelsea Roff
Eat Breathe Thrive
Advisory Board Members
By helping us to give back and spread the word about our mission, these internationally recognized teachers are igniting the flame of yoga service.
Elena Brower
Rev. Jaganath Carrera
Seane Corn
Bo Forbes
Rolf Gates
Amy Ippoliti
Gurmukh Khalsa
Cyndi Lee
Jana Long
Biff Mithoefer
Michael Nancollas, MD
Matthew Sanford
Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, PhD.
Ann Richardson Stevens
Ali Smith
Rod Stryker
Janet Stone
David Swenson
Patty Townsend
Jennifer Webb
