Dr. Suzie Carmack

PhD, MFA, MEd, ERYT 500, NBC-HWC, PCC, C-IAYT

Named Executive Well-Being Coach of the Year by Finance Monthly (2024) and Alumnae of the Year by the Department of Communication of George Mason University (2018), Dr. Suzie Carmack is an American author, yoga scholar/practitioner and executive leadership and well-being coach. With 32 years of experience as an educator in both higher education and professional education, she is a Senior Scholar for the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at George Mason University; a Leadership Trainer and Executive Coach for NewBridge Partners; and the Founder and CEO of YogaMedCo.

Known for her ground-breaking and pioneering efforts to destigmatize the practices of yoga and mindfulness in workplaces and government agency settings in the early 2000's, Dr. Carmack has been personally commissioned to create resilience and compassionate leadership trainings for the teams and senior leadership of the U.S. Department of Defense; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the U.S. Treasury Executive Institute; the U.S. Air Force; the U.S. Department of Education; the U.S. Surgeon General; the U.S. Parks Service; the Health Resources and Services Administration; and the Pan American / World Health Organization. She has personally coached 100's of senior leaders in her evidence-informed YogaMedCo method, and she has trained and certified 1000+ coaches, leaders and teams in this method for their personal and professional development.

She shares her thought leadership in the promotion of well-being with the public in her books Well-Being Ultimatum, Genius Breaks, and Yoga for One. She has also contributed her thought leadership in stress management as a science contributor to Weight Loss for Life by Hopkins Press (2021), and in burnout recovery in Embracing Complexity in Health by Springer (2019). She has also written multiple peer reviewed journal articles that advance understanding of the implementation of well-being promotion at the individual, team, organizational, and societal levels, locally and globally. In her dissertation (2014) and her work with private clients, Dr. Carmack shares her centered well-being theory, which emphasizes the importance of intrapersonal communication as the key healing element in life story recovery and the co-creation of well-being. 

DEGREES

• PhD, Health Communication, George Mason University (2014)
• MEd, Health and Kinesiology, University of Texas at Tyler (2009)
• MFA, Theatre and Arts Administration, University of Alabama and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (1991)
• BA, Communication Arts, Allegheny College (1989)

CERTIFICATIONS

• C-IAYT, Certified Yoga Therapist, International Association of Yoga Therapists
• PCC, Executive Leadership Coach, International Coaching Federation
• NBC-HWC, Board-Certified Health Coach and Trainer of Health Coaches 
• ERYT 500, Yoga Teacher and Trainer of Yoga Teachers 

BOOKS

• Carmack, S. (2024). Yoga for One: How to Co-Create an Inclusive and Evidence-Informed Practice On and Off the Mat. London: Singing Dragon Publishers.
• Carmack, S. (2017). Genius Breaks: Optimize Your Workday Performance and Well-being. Fairfax, VA: Body Doctrine.
• Carmack, S. (2015). Well-Being Ultimatum: A Self-Care Guide for Strategic Healers – Those Who Live in the Service, Leadership and Healing of Others. Fairfax, VA: Body Doctrine.

BOOK CHAPTERS

• Carmack, S. (2022) Stress Management. In Cheskin, L., et. al. (2022). Weight Loss for Life. Johns Hopkins University Press. [Senior Science Contributor].
• Carmack, S. (April 2019). U.S. Physicians’ Burnout: A Systems-level problem in need of a socio-ecological solution. In Sturmberg, J., ed. (2018) Embracing Complexity in Health: the Transformation of science, practice and policy. Springer.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

• Kennedy, S., Carmack, S., Li, L., Lin, F. C., Hatch, J. E., Chan, K., ... & Noah, T. L. (2024). Coaching Pediatricians for Wellbeing: A Pilot Feasibility and Acceptability Study. Academic Pediatrics.
• Wolever, R. Q., Cline, T. R., Weiss, J. M., Carmack, S., Schultz, C., Arloski, M., & Lawson, K. (2024). Group Health & Wellness Coaching: development and validation of the required competencies. BMC Health Services Research, 24(1), 392.
• Ahmadian, M., Carmack, S., Samah, A. A., Kreps, G., & Saidu, M. B. (2016). Psychosocial predictors of breast self-examination among female students in Malaysia: A study to assess the roles of body image, self-efficacy and perceived barriers. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 17(3), 1277-1284.

DISSERTATION

• Carmack, S. (2014). Making Sense of Well-being: A mixed-methods study applying sense-making theory to explore the role of interpersonal communication competence and social support in physical, mental, emotional and comprehensive well-being. Doctoral dissertation. (George Mason University).

IN DEVELOPMENT