Staff Bios

Abbott is a graduate of Columbia University and holds graduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University School of Business Administration.

Kathryn Arnold, Editor-at-Large. Since Kathryn Arnold joined Yoga Journal in November 1998, the circulation of the magazine has more than tripled. She has enjoyed a distinguished career in the publishing industry and has been a dedicated yoga practitioner and vipassana meditator for over 30 years.

Before coming to Yoga Journal, Arnold was editorial director of the consumer division of New Hope Natural Media in Boulder, Colorado. She has held editorial positions at Working Woman and Savvy magazines, and was a founder of New Chapter Press, an independent book publishing company. She is currently the Creative Director of the Life Balance Institute (www.lifebalance.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping individuals find meaning and freedom in their lives through the practices of Buddhist mindfulness, inquiry, and reflection. She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee.

Jennifer Bergholt, Online Sales & Marketing Director. Jennifer Bergholt joined Active Interest Media in March 2007, and is responsible for website revenue.

Prior to joining AIM, she was the Associate Media Director of Optimedia, and worked with such clients as Hewlett-Packard and L'Oreal. Prior to that, she was the Media Supervisor of MPG Media Contacts, whose clients included Wells Fargo and Barclays Global Investors.

Celine Bleu, Marketing Director. Celine Bleu joined Active Interest Media in March 2007, and is responsible for the Healthy Living Group's marketing and brand management. Prior to joining AIM, she was the Director of Partner Marketing for Dwell Magazine. Before joining Dwell, she was the Marketing Director for FrancePress, Inc., publisher of Journal Francais and France Today.

Barbara Besser, Circulation Director. Barbara Besser came on board at Yoga Journal in March 1999 when the circulation was less than 110,000. Two years later, the circulation has doubled and continues to grow.

Besser had twelve years of magazine circulation experience before coming to Yoga Journal. She worked at Health and Parenting, IDG's MacWorld, a group of small music magazines, Acoustic Guitar and String, and spent seven years at Sierra magazine.

Kathleen Craven, Director of Sales Development. Kathleen Craven created the national advertising division for Yoga Journal, which previously had only endemic yoga advertising. Since joining Yoga Journal in 1999, Craven has increased advertising pages by 20 percent and increased advertising revenue by 57%.

Before joining the Yoga Journal staff, Craven worked at Hearst Magazines as Advertising Director of Country Living's Healthy Living and at Penton Publishing as Associate Publisher of Delicious! Magazine. She started her career at Foote, Cone & Belding as a media buyer. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Eastern Illinois University.

Pat Fox, Vice President & General Manager. Pat Fox was named General Manager of AIM's Healthy Living Group in September 2006, where she is responsible for the Group's magazines, websites, conferences, custom publishing, international editions, DVDs, and book publishing.

Prior to being named General Manager, Fox was responsible for all circulation, marketing and magazine production for AIM. Prior to that, she was VP, Operations for Sabot Publications.

Fox is the former President, CEO and Circulation Director of Caribbean Travel and Life, Inc. As a founder of the company, she led Caribbean Travel and Life Magazine in becoming an acknowledged leader in its special-market niche. She also launched Latitudes South, the award-winning in-flight magazine for American Eagle Airlines, an affiliate of American Airlines.

Bill Harper, Publisher. Bill Harper brings over 30 years' experience to Yoga Journal. He began his career at Esquire magazine, then joined Wenner Media in 1980. Over the next two decades, he held various titles before leaving in 1999 as Vice President for West Coast Corporate Sales. In that position, he was responsible for advertising revenue on the West Coast for Rolling Stone, Men's Journal and US magazine. He then joined EMAP USA, where he was responsible for the West Coast launch of FHM. As Vice President for Corporate Sales for EMAP USA, he drove revenue for such magazines as Surfer, Powder Snowboarder, and Motor Trend.

Andrea Kowalski, Online Editorial Director. Andrea Kowalski joined Yoga Journal in 2005 as Web Editor, where she more than doubled email newsletter subscriptions. She now manages audience development, editorial strategy, and the day-to-day operation of YogaJournal.com.

Before coming to Yoga Journal, she served as Producer for Rodale's Prevention.com, Web Editor for EarthLink Networks, Inc., city reporter for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, and Journalism teacher for the Department of Defense in Okinawa, Japan.

Andrea has been teaching Kundalini yoga since 2000 and holds a Master of Science from the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Dayna Macy, Communications Director. Dayna Macy joined Yoga Journal in April 2001. Prior to that, she was the publicity director at various publishing companies including Collins Publishers San Francisco, Ten Speed Press, and Nolo Press. The results of her work have appeared in Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Oprah, Good Morning America, The Today Show, NPR, CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC. Just prior to joining Yoga Journal, she was the head of public relations for Salon.com. She is also a writer and her work has appeared in Yoga Journal, Self, Salon.com and other publications.

Macy holds her Bachelor of Arts degree from Drew University in Madison, N.J., and received a masters degree in philosophy from Brown University in Providence, R.I. She has been studying yoga since 1994.

Elana Maggal, Conference Director. Elana Maggal joined Yoga Journal in October 2001 as Conference Director after working as the Executive Director at The Learning Annex of San Francisco for six years. While at the Learning Annex, she helped grow the business into a household name by upgrading the caliber of presenters and quality of seminars produced. Prior to joining The Learning Annex, she was the Marketing and Publicity Director for America Live! at Sacramento, a 68,000 square foot multi-venue entertainment complex in Downtown Sacramento. Before relocating to Sacramento, Elana managed national sales meetings and trade shows for a Thomson Professional Publishing tax firm, Research Institute of America, in New York City.

Her previous entertainment-related background consists of being the Manager of Advertising and Publicity for the ABC Radio Networks in New York, where she launched both Deborah Norville's nightly syndicated talk radio show and the ESPN radio network, and the Sales Promotions Coordinator for HBO Video.

Elana holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in theatre from Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts.

Timothy B. McCall, M.D., Medical Editor. Timothy B. McCall, M.D. is a board-certified internist and the author of Examining Your Doctor: A Patient's Guide to Avoiding Harmful Medical Care. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Public Citizen's Health Letter, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times. His column appears monthly in the newsletter Bottom Line Health. From 1995-2001 his medical commentaries were featured on the public radio program Marketplace. He has studied yoga with Patricia Walden since 1995.

Charli Ornett, Creative Director. Charli Ornett, has been with Yoga Journal since 2004. She began her career at Runner's World and has worked on a variety of publications including Elle, Redbook and Health. She also has custom publishing experience having art directed magazines for Target, Sunset, Mazda, and Oracle to name just a few.

Kaitlin Quistgaard, Editor-in-Chief. Kaitlin Quistgaard joined Yoga Journal in 2003 as Managing Editor, and was promoted to Deputy Editor in 2004, then named Editor-in-Chief in December 2006.

Prior to joining Yoga Journal, Quistgaard was a Senior Editor at Salon.com, where she edited the online magazine's technology section. She was previously Business Editor at Wired News. She has written and reported for many publications including the New York Times, the Sunday Times of London, and Time magazine.

Quistgaard is a long-time yoga practitioner, who first unrolled a mat more than 20 years ago.

Selected Members of the Yoga Journal Advisory Board and Ownership Team

Chris Boskin, Advisory Board Member. Chris Boskin is a highly respected veteran of magazine publishing. Boskin joined Worth in 1993 as publisher and later worked on developing marketing programs on the West Coast for all of Worth Media titles: Worth, Equity, and Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress.

From 1988 to 1990, she was Pacific Northwest manager for Hearst Magazines, responsible for Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, House Beautiful, and Connoisseur. Boskin was a key player in launching both Countryside for Hearst and Bon Appetit for Knapp Communications. She spent 11 years at The New Yorker as Western and Pacific advertising manager. In 1987, Advertising Age included her among its "100 Most Outstanding Salespeople."

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Boskin serves on the boards of a wide variety of for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including Worth Media and KQED Radio. She is on the Leadership Council of the Laura Bush Foundation for America's Libraries, and is a member of the board for the School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Judith Hanson Lasater, Editorial Advisory Board Member. Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D., physical therapist and internationally known yoga teacher, has taught yoga since 1971. She is a founder of the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco as well as Yoga Journal magazine. Lasater frequently trains teachers in virtually every state and is often an invited guest at international yoga conventions. She is president of the California Yoga Teachers Association as well as the author of numerous articles on yoga and health for nationally recognized magazines. She is the author of Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times and Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life.

Elise Miller, Advisory Board Member. Elise Miller is the founding director of the California Yoga Center in Mountain View, California. She is an intermediate senior certified Iyengar Yoga teacher and has taught since 1976. Miller has used yoga for the past 30 years to heal her own back condition–scoliosis. She teaches classes, runs a private practice specializing in back and sports-related injuries, and teaches workshops and retreats around the world.

Miller received her M.A. in therapeutic recreation from the University of North Carolina. She is the co-author of Life is a Stretch, Yoga Anytime, Anywhere.

Phillip Moffitt, Advisory Board Member. Phillip Moffitt was the owner and editor-in-chief of Esquire magazine from 1979 to 1987. Before purchasing Esquire, Moffitt co-founded 13-30 Corporation, a publishing company in Knoxville, Tennessee, serving as both editor-in-chief and president. In 1989, Inc. magazine named him one of the "Top Entrepreneurs of the Decade."

Moffitt is the founder and president of the Life Balance Institute, a nonprofit organization devoted to the study of the mind/body relationship in both personal growth and organizational leadership. He has a black belt in aikido and teaches hatha yoga and vipassana meditation. In 1990, he co-authored The Power to Heal. He is a part-owner of Yoga Journal and currently writes the "Body & Spirit" column for the magazine.