Peter Wayne at the Tree of Life Tai Chi Center

Peter Wayne

Peter Wayne, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the Tree of Life Tai Chi Center, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Research Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine jointly based at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Between 2000-2007, Peter was the Research Director of the New England School of Acupuncture, where he developed and oversaw studies evaluating all branches of Chinese medicine.

Peter has been trained and certified to teach by numerous internal arts masters including Robert Morningstar, Arthur Goodridge, Mantak Chia, and Michael Winn. During 2000 he studied in China and received certification from the World Academic Society of Medical Qigong. He has also completed a three-year training course in Gesture of Awareness with Charles Genoud. An internationally recognized practitioner and teacher with more than 40 years of experience, Peter enjoys sharing his knowledge of the internal arts with all interested students. He particularly enjoys drawing on the principles of Western Science to help elucidate the ancient principles of traditional Asian healing arts.

Peter's current research at Harvard Medical School includes clinical and basic research evaluating the effectiveness of tai chi and related complementary and integrative medical therapies for numerous medical conditions including balance disorders, Parkinson's disease, cardiovascular health, osteoporosis, chronic pain, cancer, depression, and pulmonary disease. Peter has played a leading or collaborative role on more than 25 studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, and his research has been published in a number of leading medical journals.

He is also author of the award-winning book, The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi.