Steffany Moonaz, PhD C-IAYT

Secretary, ACIH

TWM/EP Members Representative, ACIH
Director of Clinical and Academic Research, Maryland University of Integrative Health

Steffany Moonaz, PhD, currently serves as the Associate Academic Director of Integrative Health Sciences at the Maryland University of Integrative Health (MUIH). Dr. Moonaz is also the current Chair of the Institutional Review Board at MUIH and teaches in the nation’s only Masters of Science in Yoga Therapy. Her research focuses on the role of yoga as a self-care practice for persons living with rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and lupus.

While completing her doctoral studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Dr. Moonaz worked with an interdisciplinary team from the Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center to develop an 8-week yoga protocol for arthritic populations that is now the basis for continuing education programs taught to yoga professionals around the country. Dr. Moonaz specializes in behavior change, and on the role that individual self-care can play in the trajectory of health and quality of life.

In the private sector, she developed and now directs a corporate health coaching program that has reached thousands of manufacturing employees across the country. Dr. Moonaz is an active member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists and provides yoga research consulting at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Her research has been funded by NIH, the Arthritis Foundation, American College of Rheumatology, and Johns Hopkins University and she has received numerous awards for her research and scholarship.