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.

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.

Bart van Melik had been practicing meditation intensively for 7 years in The Netherlands, his country of origin. There he developed and ran educational programs with youth, refugees and immigrants. In 2008 he came to live in New York City. Through one of his teachers, Joseph Goldstein, he was introduced to the Lineage Project. Working first as a volunteer teacher he was hired in 2010 both as a teacher and as Volunteer Co-ordinator, a new position created to support volunteers at Lineage. Bart holds a MA in Psychology of Culture and Religion from the Nijmegen University in The Netherlands. He is amazed and deeply inspired by the wisdom and compassion of the youth he teaches.