Acting Program Director

Julie Luht, MPH, MCHES

Julie Luht holds a Master of Public Health from the George Washington University and a Bachelors of Science in Dietetics from James Madison University. She has over a decade of public health consulting and workplace wellness experience. Her areas of expertise include nutrition, exercise, and weight management program design; continuing education for health professionals; online training; health policy development; programming for underserved communities and adolescents; and curriculum design. Ms. Luht is very active in the health education community, serving the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing (NCHEC) as the vice coordinator on the Division Board for Professional Development and as a member of the Board of Commissioners. She is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES).

Core and Adjunct Faculty

Kimberly L.K. Duncan, PhD

Dr. Duncan is the former director of the Integrative Health Sciences program and has served on the Tai Sophia faculty since 2006. Her doctoral degree is in pharmacology from the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. She worked in the fields of pharmacology and toxicology at academic centers for nearly 30 years, including at the National Cancer Institute in the United States and at Cambridge University in England. She holds a faculty appointment at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In addition to her current role as associate director of the Integrative Health Sciences program, she teaches and designs courses for the program that integrate studies in wellness and biomedicine with the traditional teachings of the Institute.

James Snow, MA, RH(AHG)

James Snow holds a master’s degree in Transformative Leadership and Social Change from the Tai Sophia Institute, completed the herbal residency program at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine, and is a professional member of the American Herbalist Guild. He was the primary clinical instructor at the California School of Herbal Studies, served as the Program Director of Herbal Medicine at Tai Sophia Institute, and is the Interim Program Director of Integrative Health Sciences.

Michael Tims, PhD
Director, Herbal Programs, Tai Sophia Institute

Dr. Tims holds a doctoral degree in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics from the University of Maryland, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in herbal supplement research. He has served as associate faculty at Montgomery College and taught courses at Trinity University, Northern Virginia Community College, and University of Maryland. Dr. Tims also served as a pharmacognosist at the Alternative Medicine Foundation; a contractor for the FDA, providing toxicity assessments to prioritize medicinal plant research; and as a science writer/editor for Radix Medicina, a company he founded that provides editorial support in science communications. 

Heming Zhu, PhD, CMD, MAc, LAc

Dr. Zhu holds a doctoral degree of Medicine in Anatomy and Neuroscience from Tongji Medical University and was awarded the international certificate of Chinese Medicine Doctor (CMD) by the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS). Dr. Zhu is an acupuncturist, teacher, and scientist who has practiced, taught, and researched modern conventional medicine and traditional Chinese medicine for 28 years. His work includes research in the mechanisms of neurological diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, and the role of the neuro-immuno-endocrine network in the development of neurological disorders. Dr. Zhu is the recipient of the 2007 Award for Research Excellence, has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, and is the author Surface Anatomy of Acupuncture, published in 2009.

Additional faculty will be added.