Come Practice With Us
The teachers at Yoga Lab believe that a consistent, sustainable yoga practice can make us all happier, healthier, stronger, and more balanced individuals while at the same time improving the community in which we live. Together we share a common interest in anatomy and functional movement, and in combining Western science with Eastern wisdom. We are committed to teaching a sustainable yoga practice that integrates and enriches the body, mind, and soul. Our goal at Yoga Lab is to guide you in the process of self-discovery. By teaching you how to calm your mind, reduce anxiety and stress, and tap into your physical and mental strength, you will be better prepared to confront whatever challenges you face in your life, both on and off the mat.
Meet Our Teachers
Yoga Lab Co-Founders
Kristen has been teaching yoga for 17 years. She teaches to empower students by finding freedom on the mat through fun creative yoga flows and sparking positive action with inspirational themes. With an MS in Exercise Science and as a Corrective Exercise Specialist (CES) Kristen cares about helping students use biomechanics and functional movement to optimize benefits from yoga to support physical sustainability and longevity. Kristen believes body awareness leads to self awareness which can enhance the quality of your life and your influence in the world. She started Yoga for Unity and Yoga On The Mountain to support local and global humanitarian work. Through these efforts she has raised over $28,000 for charity. Kristen is also a holistic life coach and certified in yoga, and soon to be corrective exercise, for pregnancy and postpartum. She has four children and has experienced the process of recovering and reconnecting to her body and athleticism each time. Kristen has a special interest in pregnancy and postpartum, and in addition to her regular group class, is available to work one on one to help women find their way back to themselves and their bodies, while supporting their baby and family.
Anna is a yoga teacher, photographer, clinical psychologist, fashion designer, and co-founder of Yoga Lab. Her yoga teaching focuses on mindfulness, interconnectedness, sustainability, alignment and functional movement, and compassionate action, on and off the mat. She has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, and her clinical interests and academic research focus on stress, anxiety, depression, and their associated patterns of brain activity. In 2013 she shifted her career from brain imaging research to focus on yoga, following her interest in experiential approaches to improving health and wellness. She now teaches yoga in the Kinesiology Department at Penn State, where she has earned Teaching Excellence Awards for her yoga teaching. She loves spending time in nature, hiking, and traveling the world, capturing moments of beauty with her camera. She created Sunny Get Up, an eco-friendly line of yoga clothes with designs drawn from her nature photography, to raise money for environmental charities. She hopes to inspire people to get up, get moving, and get involved in causes they care about to help make the world a better place.
Jeremy David Engels, Ph.D., is an award-winning scholar and teacher committed to building wiser and more mindful democratic communities that can thrive in a world on fire. He is currently a Professor of Communication and Ethics at Penn State University. His students know him as the “bed-headed professor” and “yoga prof.” Formally trained as a scholar of American politics, culture, and rhetoric, he has been studying and practicing yoga and meditation for 25 years, and he brings the insights of his spiritual practice to bear on his scholarship and his scholarship to bear on his spiritual practice. He has authored four academic books, including, most recently, The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita (University of Chicago Press, 2021). He is a co-founder of Yoga Lab Studio, and enjoys sharing practices that promote greater balance and deeper compassion with his community. He lives in State College, PA, with his brilliant wife Anna Sunderland Engels and two cuddly cats.
More Awesome Teachers
Brendan believes in the ability to open our hearts, strengthen our bodies, and free our minds through practicing yoga. He aims to teach movement in his classes that empower and restore the body. His favorite thing about yoga is the community it creates and the friends he has met along the way.
Laura wants to make the world a better place for her fierce & compassionate daughter. When she isn’t teaching yoga you can find her volunteering in the community or loving animals (all the animals). In 2015 she started Happy Dog Yoga to combine her passion of yoga with animal rescue and has raised over $10,000 for local charities thanks to yoga! She is also a certified Running Coach with RRCA.
Anne has been teaching yoga for 6 years. Her teaching journey started in State College, Pa at local studios, gyms, and community events. She now teaches out of Philadelphia and is currently completing an additional training in the LYT method with Lara Heimann. Anne is continually inspired by the many knowledgeable instructors & friends who have reinforced her love for yoga. She finds joy in the great outdoors, as well as in the spirit of children through her work as a teacher. Her style is approachable, yet challenging – inviting people to step in, observe, and experience strength and ease in movement.
Allie is a graduate of the Yoga Lab 200-hr teacher training. She first began practicing yoga while in graduate school to help relieve stress. Yoga has continued to be an important part of her life and helps her center and ground herself within the often hectic academic environment. When she’s not at Yoga Lab she can be found in another lab, where, as an organic geochemist, she uses the chemical signatures of molecules left behind in rocks by ancient plants to reconstruct past landscapes and climate. She loves the Yoga Lab community and is excited to expand her practice by teaching.
RC is a strength and conditioning coach at Bucknell University and works with a wide variety of teams; from women’s basketball to men’s golf to track and field, she’s experienced it all! RC brings a holistic approach to health and wellness for her students and athletes. Nutrition, mobility, mindfulness, and strength training are all components of living an optimized lifestyle. She has a masters in Exercise Science from Old Dominion University and is a certified nutrition coach through Precision Nutrition; she recently completed her RYT-200 at Yoga Lab. RC plans to pursue a masters in Mental Health Counseling in the near future. RC is from Virginia Beach, Virginia and comes from a military family. She’s a former collegiate rower and enjoys cooking, crochet, and going on hikes with her beagle puppy, Taki.
Latisha, born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, is an advocate of self-discovery. Beginning as a graduate student in Biochemistry Microbiology and Molecular Biology Doctoral Program in 2016, she soon realized she was also receiving a degree on herself. Latisha believes practicing yoga allows for acceptance, reconnection, and self discovery. She is also available for private sessions. Latisha is the founder of Gratified Grad, LLC where it’s her goal to empower students to live a holistically healthy lifestyle and graduate with gratification. Latisha is also a co-founder of Black2Reality, LLC, which seeks to serve the State College community while showcasing Black excellence through various events.
Courtney combines her creativity and her ability to connect with students into her yoga classes for a fun, grounded flow. She is a graduate of the Yoga Lab 200-hr teacher training and is working on her MPS in Art Education at Penn State University. Her favorite thing about yoga is the community it cultivates. Courtney is a teacher of both young artists and yoga students alike and finds happiness in teaching humans of all ages. In addition to yoga, she spends her time making art, cooking vegan food, and listening to live music.
Taylor’s approach to yoga combines her professional training in language and communication, her personal ethics as a forever-student, and her deep gratitude for community and connection. She is a PhD candidate and instructor in the PSU departments of French and Philosophy, and a junior scholar of post-humanism and animal philosophy. She is a lover of live-music, coffee shops, and thrift stores.
I’m from a border land named Juarez, Mexico. My husband and I are experiencing life in the United States since he is a graduate student at Penn State University. Facilitating knowledge has become one of my most rich experiences in my career and personal path. I enjoy being involved in projects related to Educational Innovation as a disruptive tool to encompass yoga teaching and personal flourishment. A search to assertively hold a balance to face the challenges of daily life, has invited me to study closely topics and methods to adopt and maintain healthy habits. This guided me recently to accomplish a Yoga Teacher Certification with a Diversity & Equity Scholarship by Yoga Lab. Also, the encouragement to start “Conscious Love”, an initiative to spread the practice beyond borders. Yoga and meditation have been for me allies in which I have found the answer to be authentic, to be kind, to be aware, and to stand out. I invite you to practice with me and to experience a caring flow in both English and Spanish!
Katy graduated from Yoga Lab’s first ever pandemic-inspired virtual intensive 200-hour YTT program in August, 2021. She enjoys yoga as the “yin” energy to balance her “yang” love of running. Along with running and yoga, Katy’s personal practice involves meditation, mindfulness, and a growing interest in spirituality and energy healing. She hopes to provide students with a sense of grounding and mind/body connection through classes that focus on alignment, strength, and functional movement paired with thoughtful mantras, quotes, and other inspiring words. Off the mat, Katy is mom to 4 humans and 3 greyhounds. She’s a passionate volunteer for Nittany Greyhounds, where she’s helped raise more than $30,000 to support rehoming retired racers. You can find Katy and her Team outdoors, usually hiking, swimming, biking, etc. She hopes to inspire her kids and students to challenge the mind, follow the heart, and tune in to the body.
Tierra D. Williams is a Mother, Activist, Public Speaker, and Yoga Instructor! This summer, she completed her 200hr Yoga course with Yoga Lab in State College, PA under their first ever diversity- scholarship. She has been a private vegan chef for the past 8 years- so she takes her health and well-being seriously. As a CDP (Certified Diversity Professional), she understands the need for equity and inclusion in all spaces. That’s why she created the brand of exercise “Afro-Cardio”. This is taking forms of body rejuvenation, exercise, and cardio, while using African, African-American and/or Black culture, music, and themes. Specifically, Tierra created Hip-Hop Yoga: a fast-paced, high-energy style of yoga using Hip-Hop music and dance techniques.
“Whether you want to move your body, reach spiritual growth, or be more present, I know you’ll benefit from my practice. Since 2016 I’ve practiced various styles of yoga, and I discovered a void that I am determined to fill. Something I know for sure is that anyone can use more yoga in their lives!”- Tierra D Williams
“Whether you want to move your body, reach spiritual growth, or be more present, I know you’ll benefit from my practice. Since 2016 I’ve practiced various styles of yoga, and I discovered a void that I am determined to fill. Something I know for sure is that anyone can use more yoga in their lives!”- Tierra D Williams
Our Global Community
Yoga Lab has always been a guru-free zone. We pride ourselves on our community of shared learning, decentralized framework of co-ownership and accountability, and collaboration with students and teachers as we hold space for self-discovery.
We’re especially grateful to Yoga Lab Co-Founders Mark Agrusti & Ariel Xu, who have now moved on to other adventures in Canada.
We’re grateful for all of the wonderful Yoga Lab teachers who have come and gone, and have made this place so special. Some of them are still local but due to other commitments don’t have regular classes on our schedule right now. Others have moved away, on to new adventures. You may still see some of them sub occasional classes or offer workshops at Yoga Lab in the future! As the home of Penn State, State College is a transitional town by nature. If you’re leaving State College and looking for a new awesome yoga teacher, some of these amazing people may be in your area, so check them out! We love them all!
“What I love is being an investigator.
Observing
Noticing
Sensing
And then figuring out how to best serve others. Connecting to core and alignment in body and spirit are pillars in this quest.
For me and you.
Let’s keep being curious.”
“It is profoundly satisfying indeed to feel the love of learning and a sense of adventure in discovery come alive in the classroom and see it manifest in your students’ work and lives through the cultivation of mindfulness. As teachers, we live for this.”