Stephanie Bryan, Ph.D.

Stephanie Bryan is a researcher, professor, and author. Her life and career reflect an enduring commitment to service of her community, particularly underserved populations who lack access to the many benefits associated with well-care and positive health behaviors.
Dr. Bryan has conducted and published research on mindfulness, meditation, yoga, exercise adherence, spiritual well-being, and health behavior improvement strategies. She is currently in the process of publishing her latest research study with colleagues at SPU on utilizing complementary therapies to enhance well-being in college students. Dr. Bryan is also publishing a weekly health blog at stephaniebryanphd.com in the hopes of producing understandable, actionable health information from a science and practice perspective . In addition, Dr. Bryan’s first children’s picture book on the practice of gratitude was published in January 2022. This children’s book has a unique feature of offering the science and practice of gratitude to the caregiver and child in effort to help them develop that life skill.

While raising four children and earning degrees in Physical Education, Exercise Science, and Health Science, Dr. Bryan worked in corporate fitness, commercial fitness, owned a yoga and fitness studio for a decade and developed and chaired the Health and Physical Education Department at SPU from 2012 to 2018.

Community service has been a cornerstone of Dr. Bryan’s life over the last 25 years, volunteering her time teaching exercise at her church; teaching yoga and exercise with Children’s Aid and Family services at a children’s foster home; serving on the streets of Newark with a Christian outreach called City Relief, and feeding the homeless with Market Street Missions.