MEET THE TEAM
We look forward to seeing you in the studio & online!
STEPHANIE ANDERSON
Senior Trainer – Pilates
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Stephanie is a movement specialist with experience and knowledge in Pilates, dance, strength training, and nutrition. She’s been a Pilates Instructor since 2012. Some of her credentials include Level 2 STOTT PILATES Instructor, PTA Global Certified Personal Trainer, Precision Nutrition Level 1 Nutrition Coach, and a Certification in Applied Functional Science from the Gray Institute. She loves finding the key to making movement feel better, be it a slight shift in words, in positioning, or something that takes a little more creativity and complexity. She also loves to travel and be near the ocean.
SARA ATWELL
Trainer – Pilates
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Sara has a degree in nursing, training in Pilates, and a Yoga RYT-500 certification. She’s taught Mat Pilates since 2016 and Equipment Pilates since 2021. She believes that the Pilates principles are life principles and allow instructors to connect with people where they are and help them improve in movement, mental focus and personal wellbeing. She loves many activiites including golf, yoga, skiing, hiking, walking, biking, and cooking.
JOAN BREWER
Front Desk
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Joan found MOVE when it first opened, when she started taking Pilates duet sessions whenever she could. Now you’ll find her smiling face at the front desk, where she loves that she gets to have face-to-face interactions with all of our clients. Before MOVE, she was a computer programmer and a tech writer, then a volunteer at all her kids’ schools, with the U of M Dive Team, and with the Cancer Support Community. After her three daughters were grown, Joan started in retail and then became a receptionist. And we’re so luckuy she did! Joan loves to read and travel, loves Broadway musicals, and hanging out with her grandkids.
SARAH BROOKS
Front Desk – Pilates Trainer
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Joan found MOVE when it first opened, when she started taking Pilates duet sessions whenever she could. Now you’ll find her smiling face at the front desk, where she loves that she gets to have face-to-face interactions with all of our clients. Before MOVE, she was a computer programmer and a tech writer, then a volunteer at all her kids’ schools, with the U of M Dive Team, and with the Cancer Support Community. After her three daughters were grown, Joan started in retail and then became a receptionist. And we’re so luckuy she did! Joan loves to read and travel, loves Broadway musicals, and hanging out with her grandkids.
SARAH COHEN
Trainer – Pilates
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Sarah was one of the first graduates of MOVE Wellness Studios’s Pilates Instructor Training Program and is a Pilates Method Alliance certified trainer. Physical activity has always been an important part of Sarah’s life, including running, yoga, and weightlifting. When she first tried Pilates, it was a lightbulb moment: “This feels amazing and I want to be able to share this with other people!” Sarah is looking forward to sharing the magic of Pilates with her clients.
RACHEL COOK
Marketing Coordinator
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DAVY DARNTON
Trainer – Pilates & Gyrotonic Method
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Davy is a Pilates nd GYROTONIC® trained instructor, who loves to challenge her clients and help them feel great in their bodies. She believes that we all have the power to heal our bodies through movement. Davy is Certified in Prenatal & Postnatal Pilates, Pilates for Diastasis Recti, and is a GYROTONIC® Apprentice Trainer. She is passionate about health prevention and education, women’s health, and holding space for healing to occur. Davy works with clients of all ages and populations, including: post-rehab pilates, prenatal and postnatal pilates, chronic illness, cancer survivors, elder adults, athletes, runners, joint replacement, and anyone who has ever sat at a desk.
ELAINE ECONOMOU
Owner, Senior Trainer – Pilates & Gyrotonic Method
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Elaine Economou is co-founder & CEO for MOVE Wellness, Teacher Training Program Director and a wellness coach who has devoted her life to helping people get as strong as they want, to live a life they love. She designed MOVE to be a place where anyone can come to find the support, expertise and inspiration they need to meet their individual fitness goals and live healthy, balanced lives, regardless of age, experience or ability. Dedicated to fostering a continuum of care for community members beyond the MOVE studio, Elaine has developed collaborative partnerships with professional healthcare providers, organizations, nonprofits, teams and fitness clubs in and around Ann Arbor, including Trinity Health, Probility Physical Therapy, AFC Ann Arbor, Cancer Support Community of SE Michigan and Michigan Medicine. She currently volunteers with the Pilates Method Alliance Advocacy Board, Michigan Medicine Women’s Health Leadership Board and UM CHAARG.
She created MOVE’s Pilates Instructor Training program to ensure those interested in pursuing a career in Pilates teaching can get the professional training, mentorship, and growth opportunities they need to develop the highest level of expertise and knowledge to support their clients.
Elaine holds a BA from Hofstra University and certification through the National Pilates Certification Program, STOTT PILATES and the GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS® Methods. She also completed the Wellcoaches School of Coaching program. A former professional dancer, she is a lifelong student of movement and the human body, taking specialty courses and attending several Pilates on Tour, IDEA and PMA conferences. She also spent nearly twenty years working professionally in non-profit administration in development and director roles.
When not teaching, volunteering or working on the business of MOVE, Elaine can be found walking her dogs in the forest near her home, spending time with her three boys and husband at home, traveling, and relaxing at their favorite “up north” spot, Beaver Island.
NATALIE KRIENKE
Trainer – Pilates
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Natalie became a Pilates certified instructor in 2018 and loves the community aspect of teaching classes. She has been dancing her whole life, loves ballet, and also serves as Assistant Artistic Director at Ballet Chelsea.
ROBIN KRIENKE
Owner
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Robin is the co-founder and business manager here at MOVE Wellness Studios. She brings vast experience as business manager for The Movement Center, as well as financial management for attorneys, financial strategists and organic farmers. She has an extensive background in education, and a master’s degree from Lesley University in Boston. When not working out or working the books at MOVE Wellness Studios, she keeps the costume department of a local dance company humming, and keeps up with three daughters who love ballet, tap, and the occasional half marathon.
GRACE MILLER
Front Desk – Apprentice Trainer
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LAUREN MILLER
Senior Trainer – Pilates & Gyrotonic Method
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Lauren is a certified GYROTONIC®, GYROKINESIS® and TRX instructor as well as a STOTT PILATES Certified Trainer. She holds a BA, a BFA and an MS from the University of Michigan and is an accomplished dancer. She spent 8 years with the Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre, 5 years in Chicago as a dancer with JHD2, dance teacher for Park Ridge district, at the Joel Hall Dance Center, as a freelance director, choreographer, performer and (in her own words) a theater tech geek! Although she has more than 30 years of dance training to her name, when she’s not dancing or helping clients achieve a greater level of fitness Lauren also finds time to pursue her other interests of geology, science education and playing the cello.
LISA NICASTRI
Senior Trainer – Pilates
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Lisa first discovered Pilates after suffering a spinal injury in a car accident that changed her life forever. After declining to have back surgery, many months of traditional treatment did not help her regain all the function she’d lost. Her pain was unceasing. That began to change after her very first Pilates session. To experience her first pain free moments after many months of struggle gave her hope at last! This experience inspired Lisa to learn the Pilates method for her own survival, and in doing so she started to thrive.
With a B.S. in Sports Medicine, a certification as an athletic trainer (ATC), having worked as a certified orthopedic technologist (OTC), and master level studies in health communication, Lisa has a depth of knowledge and experience that makes her a master in the Pilates industry.
Lisa specializes in helping clients struggling with pain and/or movement issues due to orthopedic, neurologic or unknown reasons. Her purpose is to help people take steps forward, toward freedom and fulfillment in their bodies. She will meet you where you are today, which may be different from yesterday; and tomorrow can be better! You will take those steps together, always with positivity and the reassurance that each visit is a reward for both teacher and student…sometimes the teacher IS the student.
JULIE O’DAY
Integrative Movement Specialist
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Julie is an Integrative Movement Specialist with immense experience: 25 years of manual therapy, 20 years of yoga, and 10 years of Alexander Technique. She’s a licensed massage therapist who has been practicing Craniosacral Therapy (CST) since 2007 and the Gyrotonic Method since 2012. She believes that Gyrotonic exercises offer students the way forward to new movement patterns that create resiliency, buoyancy and ease because they respect and support the way the body is actually designed to move. CST supports the body in unwinding restriction patterns gently and at a pace that allows the nervous system to integrate the changes without trauma and in a context that is safe, relaxing and nurturing. She loves to be outside moving, to write, and to spend time with her people.
JEN PETERS
Trainer – Pilates
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SARA SCHUMAN
Trainer – Pilates
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Sara is a certified Pilates teacher, Group Exercise Instructor, and CPR/First Aid certified. She has been teaching since 2017, and loves it because the principles apply to any body, yet can produce real results. Pilates compliments any fitness lifestyle or regimen. She loves nature, furry citters, hiking, and traveling. Sara also has Biology and Philosophy degrees and used to teach Health Care Ethics and Philosophy of Science. She’s currently learning about Pilates for neurological conditions.
JANE SHEETS
Trainer – Pilates & Gyrotonic Method
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Jane has been practicing Pilates personally for over 20 years and is one of our Pilates Senior Trainers. She teaches Mat Pilates as well as incorporating specialized equipment such as Pilates Reformer and Pilates Cadillac into her classes. Jane has danced ballet for more than 30 years and is a talented instructor, having taught ballet and creative dance to students of all ages at the Dance Gallery, Michelle’s Academy of Dance and Performing Arts Center and the YMCA of Ann Arbor. Jane is a Butler University graduate and also studies yoga and various Power Barre techniques. In her spare time you can find her cooking, reading and spending some quality time playing with her son.
KENNY SIMON
Trainer – Pilates
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MELISSA TRAUGER
Senior Trainer – Pilates
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Melissa is a Pilates trainer and physical therapist who treats clients and patients with the mindset that everything is connected in the chaos of the body. This view, along with her love of music, led her to finding the rhapsody within the human body. Both require many moving parts working in concert creating harmonious movement.
Melissa received her Doctor of Physical Therapy from the University of Dayton in 2016, and continues her education to diversify her skills when treating pelvic health and orthopedic populations. Her undergraduate was spent at the University of Michigan where she earned a B.S. in Movement Science. She followed that up with several years spent in Chicago working as a massage therapist and personal trainer. Now she is completing the MOVE Instructor Training Program to become a certified Pilates instructor on top of her extensive education about the human body.
When Melissa isn’t teaching Pilates or helping her clients relieve their physical pain, she spends her time with her husband, Ryan, and their dog, Coco. She enjoys writing and playing music, running, and providing comedic relief among friends and family.
LAURA TYSON
Trainer – Pilates
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Laura is a certified Pilates instructor with 25+ years of experience in fitness. She loves the Pilates equipment and the fact that no session is alike. Outside of the studio, Laura loves paddle boarding, hiking, biking, and gardening.
SHANNON WALTER
Trainer – Yoga
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Shannon is a Yoga instructor with a 500-hour certification. She loves the strength and awareness that Yoga creates, and outside of the studio, she loves walking in nature. She has taught gentle breath-based classes locally for more than 15 years. Her classes are restorative with an emphasis on the breath guiding the movement. Her classes also work to strengthen the back and increase flexibility. Her commitment to wellness and holistic living continues to evolve through classes, workshops, inspirational reading and most importantly through practice.
SUZANNE WILLETS-BROOKS
Integrative Movement Specialist
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SABRI WRIGHT
Trainer – Pilates
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Sabri is in the middle of completing her National Pilates Certification Program, with a Pre/Postnatal certification, and is studying Myomassologogy massage therapy. She loves helping people slow down and connect their mind to their bodies to allow for healing and growth. She loves to travel, hike, camp, kayak, and play at the park with her kids.