Helene Langevin

Helene M. Langevin, M.D., is director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). As NCCIH director, Dr. Langevin oversees the U.S. Federal government’s lead agency for research on the fundamental science, usefulness, and safety of complementary and integrative health approaches and their roles in improving health and health care. With an annual budget of approximately $170 million, NCCIH funds and conducts research to help answer important scientific and public health questions within the context of whole person health. The Center also coordinates and collaborates with other research institutes and Federal programs on research into complementary and integrative health. She is currently the chair of the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee. Prior to coming to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2018, Dr. Langevin was the Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, jointly based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston and professor-in-residence of medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2012 to 2018. She also previously served as professor of neurological sciences at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, Burlington, Vermont. Over her career, Dr. Langevin’s research interests have centered around the role of connective tissue in chronic musculoskeletal pain and the mechanisms of acupuncture, manual, and movement-based therapies. Her more recent work has focused on the effects of stretching on inflammation resolution mechanisms within connective tissue. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Langevin received an M.D. degree from McGill University, Montreal. She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in neurochemistry at the MRC Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit in Cambridge, England, and a residency in internal medicine and fellowship in endocrinology and metabolism at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Brad Manor

Brad Manor is the Director of the Mobility and Falls Research Center at Hebrew SeniorLife's Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research. He is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Manor’s research goal is to alleviate the burden of balance decline that often accompanies biological aging into senescence. He works to achieve this goal by identifying links between brain function, balance, and falls in older adults, and designing interventions to improve balance by optimizing brain function and exploiting its adaptive properties.

Ahmed Tawakol

Ahmed Tawakol is Director of Nuclear Cardiology and Co-Director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at the MGH. He is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He obtained his medical degree from Stanford Medical School, then trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and MGH for Nuclear Cardiology. Dr. Tawakol pioneered PET/CT methods for imaging atherosclerotic plaques ; his group developed and validated molecular imaging as a tool to assess atherosclerotic plaque inflammation in humans. Using that approach, his group is assessing novel treatments directed against atherosclerotic inflammation in humans and is studying disease mechanisms that trigger cardiovascular disease events. Notably, Dr Tawakol’s research includes a focus on multi-organ mechanisms by which stress and depression cause cardiovascular diseases. His team provided the first in-human observation linking stress-associated neural activity to subsequent CVD events, thus providing mechanistic insights into how psychosocial stress promotes CVD. He is principal investigator on multiple studies funded by the NIH, industrial sponsors, and foundations.

Jian Kong

Jian Kong is a Professor at Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School. He is an editorial board member of several journals, and an ad hoc reviewer for more than 100 journals. His research interests focus on pain perception and modulation; placebo and nocebo effects, the brain pathophysiology of chronic pain, depression, cognitive decline and autism; and how alternative medicine (such as acupuncture, mind-body interventions and imagery) and neuromodulation methods can modulate brain circuitry in these disorders using multidisciplinary brain imaging tools. He has published about 183 peer-reviewed articles and 6 book chapters in the related field (H index = 67).

Helen Lavretsky

Dr. Helen Lavretsky is a Professor In-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA and a geriatric integrative psychiatrist with federally funded research program in geriatric depression and integrative mental health using mind-body interventions. She is a recipient of the Career Development award from NIMH and the NCCIH, and other prestigious research awards. Her current research studies include investigations of psychopharmacological treatment of geriatric depression, mild cognitive impairment and the use of Tai Chi for treatment and prevention of late-life mood and cognitive disorders. She is the Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, American association for Geriatric Psychiatry, and the Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and the recipient of the Distinguished Investigator awards for research in geriatric psychiatry from the American College of Psychiatrists and the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. She is the Director of research for the UCLA Integrative Medicine Collaborative and the Director of Integrative Psychiatry program She is the President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

Fuzhong Li

Fuzhong Li, Ph.D., a native of Shanghai, is a Senior Research Scientist at the Oregon Research Institute. He received an M.A. from the University of Oregon and his Ph.D., specializing in sport and exercise psychology, from Oregon State University. Fuzhong Li’s substantive research areas include, but not limited to, exercise training on balance, mobility, and cognitive function, research-to-practice translational research, and physical activity. His research publications include papers that focus on evaluating the effectiveness of exercise interventions, including tai ji quan, on a range of psychosocial and biomedical outcomes, and falls prevention in older adults, as well as studies that deal with social and built environment influences on physical activity and overweight/obesity in aging populations.

William Tsang

William has broad clinical experience in various sectors of physiotherapy with expertise in geriatric rehabilitation. He is now the Associate Dean of School of Nursing and Health Studies and head of Department of Physiotherapy, Hong Kong Metropolitan University. William now serves as the Chairman of the Hong Kong Physiotherapy Registration Committee and member of the Physiotherapists Board, Hong Kong. William’s research interest is in area of postural control and preventative exercise including Tai Chi, qigong and Western exercises. He has publication on postural and balance control and improvement through exercise, working particularly with older adults with mild cognitive impairment, stroke and cancer survivors.

Janet Clark

Dr. Clark is an Integrative and Family Medicine Physician certified through the American Board of Family Medicine. Prior to joining the Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation as Physician Lead for Integrative Health and Whole Health Education, Dr. Clark’s most recent facility roles were Pain Clinic physician, Clinical Director of Whole Health, Medical Director of the Therapeutic Lifestyle Clinic, and ACOS for Rehabilitation and Extended Care. Her clinical interests include interdisciplinary clinical therapeutic group education for chronic disease recovery.

Daniel Seitz

Daniel Seitz, JD, EdD, is currently the executive director of the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education, a U.S. Department of Education-recognized accrediting agency for naturopathic doctoral programs in the U.S. and Canada. For more than 30 years, his professional work has been primarily in the field of complementary, alternative and integrative medicine. Among other roles, he has served as president of the New England School of Acupuncture and founding dean for graduate programs in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine at New York Chiropractic College, and has guided several emerging fields—including yoga therapy, Ayurvedic medicine, personalized nutrition, and homeopathy—in developing educational, certification and accreditation standards. He also serves as an organizational consultant and facilitator, providing nonprofits, associations and educational institutions with advice and assistance on such matters as governance, strategic planning, fundraising, and regulatory compliance.

Andrew Ahn

Andrew Ahn is Chief Medical/Science Officer at Labfront - a physiological research platform - and an affiliate faculty at BWH Osher Research for Integrative Medicine. He is a physician-scientist with an interest in marrying high-tech with healing art with the ultimate goal of advancing health and wellness.

Michael Levin

Michael Levin received his Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University. He is currently Distinguished Professor and Vannevar Bush Chair in the Biology department at Tufts University, and serves as director of the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. His work on left-right asymmetric body structures is on Nature’s list of 100 Milestones of Developmental Biology of the Century. His lab studies unconventional embodiments of mind, using a combination of developmental biophysics, computer science, and cognitive science. Applications of the work on the collective intelligence of body cells range across birth defects, regenerative medicine, cancer, synthetic bioengineering, and artificial intelligence.

Peter Wayne

Peter Wayne, PhD, is a researcher and practitioner of integrative and mind-body therapies. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. He also directs the Mind-Body-Movement Laboratory and is Associate Director for the NIH-funded Research Fellowship in Integrative Medicine. Dr. Wayne's research evaluates how mind-body and related therapies clinically impact aging and chronic health conditions, as well as the physiological and psychological mechanisms underlying observed therapeutic effects. Dr. Wayne has more than 40 years of training experience in Tai Chi/Qigong, and is an internationally recognized teacher of these practices.

Michael Irwin

Michael R. Irwin, M.D. is Norman Cousins Distinguished Professor in Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Science at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine, Director of the Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, and Director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center. He has made pioneering contributions to understanding to the role of Tai Chi and mindfulness interventions to boost antiviral immunity, reverse inflammation, and to treat insomnia in older adults. In 2003, his research showed that Tai Chi boosted vaccine responses to varicella zoster virus, which was cited among the top 10 “research highlights” by NCCAM. He first demonstrated that Tai Chi was effective and non-inferior to cognitive behavioral treatment of insomnia (CBT-I), the “gold standard”, in the durable treatment of insomnia in older adults and cancer survivors, with additional benefits in reversing systemic, cellular, and transcriptional markers of inflammation. Finally, he has found that Tai chi is an effective approach to reduce central obesity in older adults. His broader research has provided foundational understanding of the role of sleep in the regulation of immunity, the impact of insomnia and inflammation on depression, and the efficacy of insomnia treatment to prevent incident and recurrent major depressive disorder in older adults.

Byeongsang Oh

Associate Professor Byeongsang Oh, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, and visiting Professor, University of Kansas Medical School, USA, is an integrative oncology practitioner (evidence-based complementary and lifestyle medicine) with clinical and research interests in Medical Tai Chi/Qigong mind-body medicine and lifestyle medicine including the microbiome. He introduced integrative medicine services at the Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH), GenesisCare, and the Mater Hospital in Sydney, Australia, and specializes in integrative oncology. Dr Oh has research and clinical experience at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Harvard Medical School (HMS), USA, and has collaborated in integrative oncology research projects with DFCI, HMS, Arizona State University, and the University of Kansas Medical School. Dr Oh is one of the founding members and current president of the International Medical Tai Chi Qigong Association (iMTQA).

Chenchen Wang

Dr. Chenchen Wang is a Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Tufts Medical Center. Her work is focused on Integrative Medicine treatment strategies to promote health and healing in patients with chronic medical conditions. As principal investigator, Dr. Wang has been awarded numerous US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants to test the health benefits of mind-body therapies. She is also the privileged recipient of a 10-year NIH Mid-career Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research and currently provides significant mentorship to global researchers in clinical and translational integrative medicine with a multi-disciplinary team of trained scientists. These projects have provided the opportunity to define the role of integrative mind-body medicine in the management of chronic medical conditions. Dr. Wang's mentoring efforts have resulted in the production of over 150 peer-reviewed publications by her trainees from 2000-2022 in the field.

Gloria Yeh

Dr. Yeh is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), Director of Clinical Research at the Harvard Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, and Director of the HMS Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in Integrative Medicine. She also directs a mind-body research program in the Division of General Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. As an internationally recognized leader in the field, she has served as PI or co-investigator on dozens of NIH-funded trials of Tai Chi and related mind-body therapies with expertise in clinical trial methodology, including intervention development and adaptation for complex chronic disease, psychosocial and physiological outcome measurement, and mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. Her research has focused on the intersection of mindfulness and movement, with a specific interest in the role of mind-body therapies in promoting physical activity, and the impact of mind-body exercise on cardiopulmonary physiology and risk of cardiovascular disease.