Louise Mahoney

Greetings - I have been leading iRest meditation groups for the past 4 years - leading the meditation by phone to Veterans as well as in person to clients during yoga therapy sessions. I recently left the VA after 21 years of coordinating education projects for 2 specialty programs withing VA and was hired back to provide iRest to Veterans across the country. In 2010 I started a clinical yoga program for local Veterans as a pilot research project which led to collaborations on 2 federally funded research projects studying yoga as treatment for chronic pain in Veterans. Prior to joining the VA I worked as an academic computing consultant at 2 major universities in Southern California and as a FORTRAN programmer for private companies. My educational background is in molecular and developmental genetics and I worked in research labs at UCLA and USC concurrent with pursuing a professional career in modern dance. Dance was my entry into yoga - I volunteered to teach movement to staff at the VA and somehow it morphed into teaching yoga to staff and then to the Veterans. I started to practice Transcendental Meditation during college and continue to practice it along with iRest today. I believe in the healing power of meditation and it is my heartfelt mission to share iRest with others in private, clinical, and research settings.