Lilli Erin Beese is deaf and she teaches in American Sign Language (ASL) and in British Sign Language (BSL), she is one of the very few registered yoga teachers in the world teaching in sign language and she is honored to serve the ASL community in Austin and internationally and to provide them with accessible yoga. All walks of life are welcome to her class at the Practice Yoga Austin studio and church – there will be the occasional voiceover meaning the class is accessible to non-signers too.

Lilli was working towards becoming a doctor of clinical psychology when she realised her passion was to share the wisdom of yoga with her community. She did her 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training and her 300 Hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training with Practice Yoga Austin. Lilli’s classes infuse asana with pranayama, meditation, psychology, humour and self-care for a holistic experience.

Lilli took her first yoga class at the age of 14 and over the years she always returned to the mat. Lilli later came to the realisation that she kept going back to yoga as it fulfils the psychological and spiritual aspect as well as the physical component.

Lilli’s background was in media as a TV host and as a registered deaf interpreter translating English into sign language for websites, museums and art galleries. She also interpreted for deaf and deaf-blind clients in the legal field and in the health field. After 16 years in media and 7 years in interpreting Lilli decided to go back to school and she graduated with a First Class BSc Honours in Psychology from the University of London and she worked in academic research working on papers on the neurobiology of language, mental health screening tools, identity and intersectionality as well as working in a psychiatric hospital and being a foster parent and a co-author of an award winning book called ‘Proud to be Deaf’.

Lilli is a Member of Registered Sign Language Translators, she was one of the first deaf interpreters in the U.K to undertake training and to become certified. She has translated for many different institutions such as the Houses of Parliament, Royal Observatory Greenwich, the NHS, Tate Modern, St Paul’s Cathedral, Chartwell House, Knole House, Titanic Museum, National Maritime Museum, The British Museum, Science Museum, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Mulberry England, Wellcome Collection, and Buckingham Palace as well as translating for many different websites. She was also an in-vision presenter for television programmes such as Hollyoaks, Blues Clues, See Hear, Portland Babies, The Jeremy Kyle Show, Baby Story, 60 Minute Makeover, A Place in the Sun, Midwives and Deadly 60 to name a few. Lilli has also presented on television programmes as a television host on programmes for the BBC, Channel 4 and BSL Zone.

Lilli has also interpreted in the health field and in the legal field such as interpreting for child and family therapy, for the Ministry of Justice in court, for mental health assessments, case conferences and tribunals as well as interpreting for the police and social services and so on. Lilli was also a school governor for Frank Barnes School for the Deaf, London, UK. Lilli graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Psychology from the University of London and she also worked in academic research and is a named author in several peer reviewed academic papers.

Lilli worked at University College London (UCL) at the Deafness, Cognition and Language research centre where she organised the well-attended and successful Deaf Children’s Development Conference as well as working on a neural plasticity fMRI project and on a phonological fluency project. She also worked at the Institute of Education (IOE), the Leeds and York Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, the Cognitive Disorders Clinic at the Hospital of Neurology and Neuroscience and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. Lilli also worked for Southwark Council as a foster parent for deaf children with additional needs such as Autism Spectrum Disorder. Lilli along with her husband Nick also founded the Deaf Parents Deaf Children (DPDC) organisation - the first and the only of its kind in the country - DPDC continues to host events to this day. Lilli and her family also ran a successful dog-sitting business in London as well as running an online store selling prints that celebrate British Sign Language.

Lilli has also co-authored a children's book along with her husband and daughter called Proud to be Deaf which is available to buy on Amazon. The book was shortlisted for the School Library Association Book Award, and was also put forward as one of only twelve UK nominations for the global list of Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities.

RESEARCH PAPERS

Towards an understanding of the experiences of Deaf Gay Men: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to an Intersectional View
(Submitted to the Journal of Homosexuality - Oct 2019)
Beese, L., & Tasker, F.

The role of iconicity in lexical retrieval in a signed language: Evidence from phonological fluency tasks.
(In prep)
Marshall, C. R., Beese, L., Vinson, D., & Atkinson, J.

The organisation of working memory networks is shaped by early sensory experience.
The Journal of Neuroscience.
Cardin, V., Rudner, M., De Oliverira, R., Andin, J., Beese, L., & Ronnberg, J. (2018)

Stage 1: cross-cultural translation of a screening tool for mental health in deaf children.
NIHR Journals.
Roberts, S., Wright, B., Moore, K., Smith, J., Allgar, V., Tennant, A., Docherty, C., Hughes, E., Collingridge Moore, D., Ogden, R., Phillips, H., Beese, L., & Rogers, K. (2015)

Working memory and crossmodal plasticity in congenitally deaf individuals.
Society for Neuroscience.
Cardin, V., Rudner, M., De Oliveira, R., Andin, J., Beese, L., Woll, B., & Ronnberg, J. (2015)

Translation into British Sign Language and validation of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire
NIHR Journals
Roberts, S., Wright, B., Moore, K., Smith, J., Allgar, V., Tennant, A., Docherty, C., Hughes, E., Collingridge Moore, D., Ogden, R., Phillips, H., Beese, L., & Rogers, K. (2015)

Does the superior temporal cortex have a role in cognitive control as a consequence of cross-modal reorganization?
Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language.
Cardin, V., Rudner, M., De Oliveira, R., Su, M., Andin, J., Beese, L., et al., (2015)

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