Dr. Shirley Telles has a degree in conventional medicine (MBBS) and an MPhil and Ph.D. in Neurophysiology. Both MPhil and Ph.D. theses were on the effects of yoga practice. Dr. Telles received a Fulbright fellowship in 1998 and in 2001 an award from the Templeton Foundation for creative ideas in meditation and neurobiology. In 2007 she received an Indian Council of Medical Research Centre for Advanced Research to study meditation’s effects through autonomic variables, evoked and event-related potentials, polysomnography and fMRI. Dr. Telles has been the director of Patanjali Research Foundation, Haridwar, India.

Dr. Telles has over 179 research papers listed in bibliographic databases and authored 6 books. Most importantly, she is an enthusiastic practitioner of yoga.