Saskia Layden is the Founder and Director of The Human Plant Project. She is a certified yoga instructor and has taught therapeutic yoga and mindfulness for various educational and community organizations around the world.​

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Saskia completed her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training Program at Loom Yoga Center in Brooklyn, NY. She has also trained with The Lineage Project, a program that uses mindfulness and self-empowerment practices to break the cycle of poverty, violence and incarceration among youth living in at-risk communities.  Saskia participated in the 2014 Mindfulness & Education Conference: Bringing Mindfulness to Children Grades K-12 at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. She was also a part of the 2014 "Yoga for Trauma - Teaching from the Inside" workshop led by the founder of Liberation Prison Yoga, a program that brings trauma-sensitive yoga programs to incarcerated men, women, and youth in New York State. 

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In addition to her experience with yoga, Saskia holds a BA in Spanish Language and Literature from Syracuse University and an MA in International Education from New York University. Saskia speaks fluent Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese and has studied, worked, and lived in many countries around the world. She led the yoga portion of the Advice Project's 2015 Leadership and Empowerment Summit for teen girls in Tambopata, Peru. Saskia currently lives in Turkey.