Kelly Howard

Kelly Howard is an adjunct professor in the Integrative Health and Wellbeing Health Coaching Program at the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing with a focus on group coaching. She also designs and delivers integrative health curricula at the University of Health and Performance, an organization for veterans in Northwest Arkansas. She serves as an Executive Member of the Cornerstone Collaborative, and teaches in the Southern California University of Health Sciences Doctorate of Whole Health Leadership program. Kelly is also a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, working with the Holistic Health and Fitness directorate on expanding yoga and mindfulness enterprise-wide.

From 2012-2022 she developed and led the VA's Whole Health Education program, educating and training VA leaders, clinicians, and coaches nationwide. During this time, her team created multiple face-to-face and virtual courses for clinicians (Whole Health in Your Practice, Pain and Suffering, Eating for Whole Health, Mental Wellbeing, Social and Structural Determinants of Health, Coaching Skills for Clinicians, Emergency Medicine, Nurse Leaders, and Inpatient Nursing), for non-clinicians (Whole Health Coaching, Taking Charge of My Life, Partner Skills, and Mentoring), and for leaders and supervisors (Empowering Your Team and Leading Change). Her team also created the Whole Health Library, Passport to Whole Health Reference manual, and nine online courses (Whole Health Foundations: A Personal Experience, Mindful Awareness, Clinician Self-Care, Introduction to Complementary and Integrative Health, Facilitation, Eating for Whole Health, Functional Nutrition for Pain, Pain and Suffering, and Coaching Demonstrations). In total, over 250,000 VA staff were educated and trained during this time, along with nearly one hundred national and local educators to spread Whole Health education at the national, regional, and local levels.  

Kelly was in the first class of Certified Duke Integrative Health Coaches at Duke Integrative Medicine in 2010 and the first cohort of National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coaches in 2017. She served as a member of the competency advisory committee for the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching for the first revisions to coaching competencies in 2024. 

She has been a yoga instructor (RYT-500) for over twenty years and has completed over 1,000 hours of yoga teacher training. She holds additional certifications in breathwork, death coaching, and mind-body nutrition. 

She has served in the US Army since 1998: with troops at Ft. Hood and Schofield Barracks, as the Operations Officer for the Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, and as Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Army at the Pentagon. She deployed twice to Iraq, serving in Tikrit in the first year of the war and Baghdad during the Surge. She is currently assigned to US Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Eustis, Virginia. 

Kelly is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point with a B.S. in Political Science, Latin American Studies, and Environmental Engineering, has a Master of Arts in Human Resources Management, and is pursuing a doctorate in Whole Health Leadership. She lives in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia, with her two young daughters. 

• Certified Mind-Body Nutrition Coach, Institute for the Psychology of Eating, 2024

• Certified Precision Nutrition Coach, Precision Nutrition, 2022 

• Certified Breathwork Instructor, Restore Your Prana, 2022

• Certified Life Coach, The Life Coach School, 2021 

• Certified Conscious Dying Coach, Conscious Dying Institute, 2020 

• Mindful Yoga Therapy Teacher Training, Veterans Yoga Project, 2011

• 500-Hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training, Glenmore Yoga, 2011 

• Power Yoga Instructor Training, Bryan Kest Power Yoga, 2010 

• Certified Integrative Health Coach, Duke Integrative Medicine, 2010 

• Therapeutic Yoga for Seniors Certification, Duke Integrative Medicine, 2009 

• 200-Hour Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training, Flow Yoga Center, 2008 

• Advanced Teacher Training, Core Power Yoga, 2006 

• Master Fitness Trainer, U.S. Army, 2002 

• Advancing a New Model of Collaborative Practice: A Decade of Whole Health Interprofessional Education across Veterans Health Administration, BMC Medical Education, 2024

• Workshop Facilitator, Championing Whole Health through Education, 2024 International Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health 

• The Untapped Power of Health and Wellness Coaching, Military Medicine, Sep 2023 

CSPH 5709: Health and Wellness Coaching for Groups