About Master Yang Yang, PhD

Master Yang Yang, PhD is the founder and Scientific Director of the Center for Taiji & Qigong Studies (CTQS), a New York–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization conducting randomized controlled trials on Tai Chi and Qigong since 1998. Through CTQS, he and his collaborators have produced clinical trials in sleep, anxiety, balance, immune function, cognition, and general wellbeing.

As lead author on his team's 350-participant randomized controlled trial of virtual Tai Chi and Qigong for chronic low back pain — published in the North American Spine Society Journal (2024) — Master Yang's work was featured at Harvard Medical School's 2026 conference, The Science of Tai Chi and Qigong as Whole Person Health. The trial demonstrated clinically meaningful improvements in pain, function, and sleep through virtual delivery. Master Yang separately founded WaQi to translate research findings into broadly accessible programs.

His research collaborations include Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia, Yale, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Mayo Clinic. He has also presented his work at the National Institutes of Health. Current work focuses on large-scale pragmatic trials of Tai Chi and Qigong for chronic low back pain, evaluating clinical effectiveness, healthcare utilization and cost, and workforce productivity.

He earned his PhD in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focusing on the benefits and mechanisms of Tai Chi and Qigong. A lineage-trained Chen Tai Chi master and three-time intercollegiate martial arts champion in Shanghai, Master Yang began Tai Chi at age 12 to address a congenital heart condition, which had resolved within four years — an experience that shaped his lifelong inquiry into Tai Chi as a path to health. His training began in his hometown under local Grandmasters near the Chen Village region, the birthplace of Tai Chi, and continued from 1981 under three legendary 18th-generation Grandmasters — Feng Zhiqiang, Gu Liuxin, and Chen Zhaokui — until his relocation to the United States in 1993, with 40 years of teaching including 25+ years of clinical experience in the U.S. He is the author of Taijiquan: The Art of Nurturing, The Science of Power.