Suzanne Elliott, Vice President; Governance Committee

Tim Mizerak, Treasurer; Governance Committee

Tim started practicing yoga in 2013 as a supplement to his fitness regimen, which includes weight training and figure skating. He discovered skating in his late 20s, then started competing in his late 30s in both pairs and singles. He used yoga sporadically during that time to increase flexibility and improve his overall fitness. After about 10 years of competing he shifted his focus to part-time coaching, while also training to  keep up his skating skills. 

Tim increased his yoga training in 2018, and then in 2019 made the decision to start competing. He is current US National Men's 50+ Champion and also won the gold medal in 2021. He has participated in several USA Yoga committees and in 2022 joined the Board of Directors. While still skating casually, he is mostly focused on his yoga, as well as weight training and calisthenics. He also enjoys spreading the word about yoga, and yoga sport, and is introducing other athletes to the idea of competing.

Glenn Brown moved with his family to New Albany, Indiana when he was six years old, and it is still his home. As the last of six kids he attributes sibling rivalry to his competitive edge. He began practicing yoga as a 17 year old as a complementary practice for meditation and kung fu. Finding his way through depression in high school he shifted his focus from swimming and wrestling to art, music, movement art, and meditation. He decided then he wanted to work toward being a kung fu and yoga teacher, and an artist and author. His search for a school, teacher, and work was difficult, but full of great life lessons. He finally met his kung fu teacher, Sifu Keith Dwan of the Red Dragon School of Martial Arts, while Keith was visiting Louisville from England with his school for a Martial arts tournament. Glenn expressed his interest in form over fighting, and was invited to a Hsing-i Kung Fu, Qigong, and Acupressure training, which he attended in England in 2001.

In the spring of 2002 he went to his first Bikram Yoga class at Bikram Yoga Indiana where he met the woman who would become his wife, Ayanna. She was the only teacher at the time, and the co owner. She believed in his potential, and the studio sponsored him to go to Bikram Yoga teacher training the same year in the Fall. Glenn has taught at Bikram Yoga Indiana from 2002 to the present. He fell in love with yoga because of its similarities to kung fu and qigong, and its amazing diversity of postures and styles.

The day of his teacher training graduation he and Ayanna were invited to be competitors in a mock yoga championship at a judging and coaching clinic for the Bishnu Ghosh Cup International Yoga Asana Championship to be held in 2003. That experience lit the competitive fire for Glen. He has competed every year except for one, taking a year off to focus on coaching. He is the 2018 US Men's Nationals Champion and 14-time Indiana Men's Regional Yoga Champion. He self published his first book of poetry "Four in the Fire" in 2007.

After eight years of teaching primarily Bikram Yoga he started teaching based on his private practice. His kung fu teacher encouraged him to continue developing his home practice so he could lead a personalized warm up and warm down for Kung fu students. Over the years this developed into his own method of qigong and yoga blended together. In 2010, Glenn founded Lionflow Progressive Yoga & Arts LLC , and has focused on practicing, teaching, and training teachers in Lionflow Yoga which focuses on calm intentional motion, breathing, and short holds in stillness. The student learns to accept where they are today, and to have a conversation with your body instead of an argument.

Rajashree Choudhury, C-IAYT Founder; Fundraising and Communications Committee

Born in Kolkata, India in 1965, Rajashree began her yoga training at age 4 under her parents' encouragement at the B.C. Ghosh Training Institute and Mahila Bayam Kendra. She was a five-time Indian National Yoga Champion (1979-83) and won the Bishnu Charon Ghosh Cup in 1982. Rajashree is certified in Hatha Yoga Therapy for chronic conditions. In 1994, she co-founded the Bikram Yoga Teacher Training Program, and trained nearly 10,000 teachers from more than 100 countries. She authored a pioneering book on practicing yoga during pregnancy in 1995. To promote yoga practice and competitive yoga sport, in 2003 she founded both USA Yoga Federation and the International Yoga Sports Federation (IYSF). She served as its first president and continues to serve on its board.

With near 40 years of experience in the West, she focuses on the emotional aspects of yoga, its impact on the body-mind-soul connection, and on vibrant health. She conducts worldwide seminars and teaches her acclaimed pregnancy yoga classes.

Judy Lu, Chair, Coaches Training; Governance Committee

Judy Lu moved from China to Canada and then to the United States where she found her true home by immersing herself in Bikram Yoga. She began her yoga practice in 2001. Judy believes that her world travels help her to better relate to her yoga students. Judy earned her Bikram yoga certification in 2008. After challenging students through teaching yoga, Judy ran her own Bikram yoga studio for four years in Orange County, California, with the goal of improving the lives of her students from the inside out. To further her love for the yoga practice, Judy has committed her time and energy to USA Yoga and has been a certified judge since 2015. Judy gives private lessons and coaches yoga athletes. After two decades of practice, Judy is a true believer in the vast benefits of a regular yoga practice for both mental and physical health. Judy truly believes in the multifactorial benefits of Bikram yoga and is a testament to its healing qualities.

Erin Paulsen, Chair, Judges Committee

Erin Paulsen has been practicing yoga since 2007, received her 500-hour Bikram Yoga Teacher certification in November of 2010, and studied intensely under Senior Teacher Lynn Whitlow from 2010 to 2015. She has taught at several Bikram Yoga studios across the country and is currently the owner of Radiant Yoga Ukiah in California.

Kim Tang, Rules Review Committee

Kim Tang has been a student, teacher, studio owner, presenter, demonstrator, five-time California State Champion, on the national stage six times, and nationally ranked, head coach and judge for USA Yoga and the International Yoga Sports Federation. She has coached countless yoga athletes comprehensively on regional, national and international Stages.  She has mentored and taught at Bikram Yoga Teacher Training as well as second generation trainings. She has demonstrated the advanced series alongside Bikram, Emmy Cleaves, international champions, and many others for the new graduates of seven trainings, each with an audience of 300 and up to more than 450 people. "Now Teacher of Teachers of Teachers, I have expanded far beyond the 26, or even the 84, inviting the Wisdom of the ages, the Wisdom of multiple disciplines, and the Wisdom of all limbs of yoga as well as extensive Spiritual Sources in to my practice, my Consciousness, and my Heart. I Teach from the Knowing in my Tissues and my direct experience of having created some of the deepest and most complex postures 'from scratch.' I understand how to use the modalities of the Mind and Connection to Breath to get there."  

Libby Walunas, MA, C-IAYT, RYT 500, OHYA Level 3, Judges Committee 

Libby is a certified yoga therapist trained by S-VYASA USA (Houston) and The Minded Institute (London). She teaches online therapeutic yoga for MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston) and is a private yoga therapist, breath coach, and embodiment coach online and in the Billings, Montana area. She began practicing yoga asana in 1996 and began teaching in 2005 with certifications in hatha/vinyasa (2005), Bikram (Spring 2006), yin (2017), and Ghosh (2019, 2023). Additionally, she has practiced power yoga, the Ashtanga primary series, restorative yoga, and Iyengar yoga. She is also committed to a traditional pranayama and meditation practice. 

As a former stage actor, Libby enjoys the performance aspect of asana championships. She competed in six regionals (2003-2009), twice placing as an alternate for the national team. She has served as an informal coach, a regional MC, a regional and national USA Yoga judge, and an international IYSF A-level judge. 

Libby is a medievalist by training and taught history at college and high school levels. She has been studying yoga history and Indic philosophy since 2017 and Sanskrit since 2019. She has a special interest in promoting the mental and spiritual aspects of yoga within the asana championship community. 

Lynn Whitlow, Fundraising and Membership Committee

Lynn Whitlow brings deep experience in yoga teaching, judging, and championship development to the board of USA Yoga. In 2023, she began her second appointment to the board.

Lynn was among the first to be trained as a judge for the inaugural Bishnu Ghosh Hatha Yoga Competition. She has decades of experience organizing regional competitions throughout the U.S.  Lynn travels year-round to judge competitions and share her decades of experience with yoga communities around the planet.

Lynn has lead the judges committee of the Board of Directors of USA Yoga where she developed a system for training judges. Lynn rejoined the board in 2023.

USA Yoga is proud to be represented on the International Yoga Sports Federation Technical Committee by Lynn. With her help, IYSF oversees the continued evolution and development of the sport's rules and guidelines — used at competitions worldwide.

Cynthia Wehr, Coaches and Judges Committees

Past Board Members

Jean Agress, Past Chair, Judges Committee

Jean Agress found the hot room in 2010 and has been practicing hot yoga almost daily ever since. She was fascinated by how the deeper calmness and focus she experienced after each class carried throughout her day.

She was inspired to share what she had learned through this wonderful 90-minutes, 26 posture series with others, which led her to pursue Bikram yoga teacher training in 2013.

Jean’s aspiration is to plant as many “yoga seeds” as she can in the hearts of others so they can benefit from the same healing power, both mental and physical, that she experienced.

To advance her skill as a teacher, she decided to become a USA Yoga certified judge and coach in 2015 by participating in USA Yoga judge’s clinic.

Jean has a PhD in Economics from George Washington University. She is past chair of the USA Yoga Judges Committee.

Erika grew up in Manhattan, then received a combined BA from Tufts University in Biology and Psychology. Out of school, Erika built a consulting business as a nutritionist and physical trainer building a private clientele of predominantly post-menopausal women who needed help keeping strength, mobility and bone density.  Before having children, Erika also designed and organized health retreats, owned and ran a bed and breakfast and built a small gourmet mustard business.

Moving from Manhattan to build and run a bed and breakfast with her husband Jeff in a town of 500 people in rural Virginia was part of Erika’s journey to where she is now.  While having and raising two children she threw herself into town business as chairman of the planning commission and elected member of the town council.

Erika ran into yoga when she was 19 after learning meditation to combat tension-migraine headaches.  She then picked up a physical asana practice, and over 30 odd years has moved fluidly in and out of several different yoga disciplines. She has come to believe they are all worth learning and serve a person differently at different times in their life.  At 43, Erika has found her yoga practice becoming a more important component of her life and is open to find ways to give back. She feels yoga has brought wonderful people, health and balance into her life when she most needed these things and would be honored to help others find their practice through USA Yoga.

Jennifer Vanderhart, PhD, Past President

Jennifer has been practicing yoga since 2009. A former runner and college basketball player, she knows first-hand the power of yoga to heal the body. In addition to a daily practice, she has attended dozens of seminars and workshops, and twice she attended the week-long Advanced Seminar. Jennifer has demonstrated at the USA Yoga Competition seven times. She placed first in Virginia twice, and placed fifth at the 2017 National competition. She teaches hot Pilates and loves to help others get strong, play, and discover new ways to enjoy their yoga.