Our Key Staff Members
The Advisory Board
Our Advisory Council
More about our program

Key Staff Members

Beth Navon, Executive Director, has been an administrator in the non-profit sector for over twenty-five years. Recognized for her expertise in the mental health field she has traveled all over the country to be on panels, lead workshops and moderate national conferences. In her most recent capacity as Executive Director of an organization focusing on juvenile justice, she increased the agency's budget by a factor of ten. She created a nationally recognized service delivery model for youth re-entering the community after incarceration and has published several articles and a book chapter describing how to replicate the model. Ms. Navon graduated from Simmons College School of Social Work with a Masters degree in Social Work in 1973. In 2003 Ms. Navon was certified in Executive Management from Columbia University's School of Business. Ms. Navon has been a yoga practitioner for over 35 years.

Jeramy Zimmerman, Program Manager, came to the Lineage Project as a volunteer in 2005, and has enjoyed teaching (and learning) at various Lineage sites since then. In 2007, she became Lineage's Program Manager and she remains excited and inspired by her role. Jeramy is certified through OM Yoga Center in NYC. As a dancer and choreographer, Jeramy has worked with at-risk youth since 1993 and she sees her work with Lineage as a path fusing her prior work with her yoga practice.

Leslie Booker, Teacher, received her 200 hour yoga teacher training and her pre-natal yoga teacher training in 2007. She immediately began working with pregnant and parenting teen girls through the Liberty Partnership Program. Her work with at-risk populations continued in 2008 when she started working with incarcerated youth through the Lineage Project. Most recently, she has become one of our instructors for the teacher training. In the spring of 2008, she assisted in a nurturing yoga retreat at Kripalu in Lenox, Massachusetts and will be assisting the Lineage Project in an upcoming teacher training at Omega in Rhinebeck, New York. She is a member of the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association as well as the International Association of Black Yoga Teachers. Leslie is also a 2006 graduate of the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and practices Foot Reflexology in New York City.

Amber Campion, Teacher, is a Certified Holistic Health Counselor, Yoga Instructor, Private Chef, and Youth Educator. She is very involved with youth empowerment, using movement and music as her tools. She developed a body awareness program (BAMM! Body Awareness through Movement & Music) that is used in several all girl schools around Manhattan and Brooklyn. Amber is also an ever evolving musician, capoerista, and aspiring juggler.

Summer Deaver, Teacher, is an artist of many means. She is constantly exploring new ways to communicate ideas of the universal thread. After 9/11, she felt an urgency to commit to the practice of helping others and soon after completed her training in Prana Yoga with Jeff Migdow and Robyn Ross, whom she continues to assist in their teacher trainings. She is passionate about working with youth and now leads workshops for teachers who wish to reach kids with yoga and awareness. She has worked with at-risk youth, incarcerated youth as well as kids with healthy and nurturing lifestyles.

Theo Fiorillo, Teacher, was found by Yoga in 1998, after a marathon-related injury forced him to the sidelines of amateur competition. He studied with Cyndi Lee and her staff of amazing teachers for seven years, getting exposed to all aspects of a yogic lifestyle, before enrolling in Om Yoga's teacher training program. From Spring 2005 thru Fall 2007, he completed Levels I-V of the Shambhala Meditation Training, including Dathun at Shambhala's Colorado Mountain Center. In early 2005, Theo was recruited for a teaching position with the Shambhala Meditation Center's Riker's Island Project. The Riker's Project was a secular, non-sectarian, volunteer program that brought yoga, meditation and literacy to people incarcerated on Riker's Island. He served as Program Director and taught at Riker's for three and a half years. He has been teaching with Lineage since January 2009, and has been both astounded and delighted with the dedication, effort and openness to learning exhibited by the students he has been privileged to work with there. Theo has also taught yoga and meditation at Om Yoga, The Yoga Spot, East Yoga, B Yoga, The Harvard Club and Dolphin Gym.

Stephan W. Kolbert, Teacher, is an educator and movement enthusiast who brings joyous life energy, flexibility and calm to his classes as well as his personal practice. His yoga practice grew out of his previous studies in Lama Kung Fu, Tai Chi, meditation, weight lifting and running. He is a Certified Yoga Teacher with over 500 hours of training. Stephan has spent two decades working with diverse populations: from the homeless and incarcerated to those owning multiple dwellings - aged 4 to 84. He has led travel programs for youth, utilized intensive retreats with high and low ropes courses, facilitated diversity-training seminars, created curriculum and tutored students with dyslexia, ADD, ADHD and unidentified learning challenges. He has worked with NY Youth-At-Risk, the NYC Outward Bound Center, the Anti-Defamation League's A World of Difference program, Common Cents NY, The Reciprocity Foundation and The Calhoun School (where he currently teaches Kindergarten). He has traveled on six continents and performed Hamlet in Prague Castle. Stephan holds an MA in Counseling and Guidance from NYU and a BS from Ithaca College in a combined studies program of Speech Communications and Business Marketing.

Grace Tappin, Teacher, has been a dancer, performer and choreographer for over 20 years. She began her study at Joffrey Ballet and continued studying various forms of movement like African Dance and Modern. In college she began her yoga practice in Vinyasa yoga. She worked as a counselor for adults with disabilities at the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service. Grace has an extensive background in peer leadership, diversity in education and community service in the NYC area. Grace currently teaches ballet, African dance and yoga to children and adults. Grace believes that movement, meditation and healthy locally grown food should be accessible to everyone and is necessary to developing awareness of oneself and community.