Chinese medicine-clinical research grad promotes a holistic approach that honors complexity, coherence, and connection.

The National University of Natural Medicine is proud to highlight our student speakers for the 2025 Commencement, taking place on June 28.

Tanya Snyder ‘25 

Program: Doctor of Acupuncture with a Chinese Medicine Specialization (DAcCHM), Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR)  

Tanya Snyder will serve as the College of Classical Chinese Medicine program’s student speaker at the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM) commencement ceremony on June 28.  

Snyder was drawn to Chinese medicine by a belief that healthcare should feel like an invitation back to the self.  

As an undergraduate, she studied energy systems and complex modeling, earning a degree in nuclear engineering with a concentration in nuclear physics and fluid dynamics.

Through her later work as a data analyst, botanical chemist, and in various roles within the wellness community, Snyder noticed a growing disconnect between the precision of science and the nuance of healing.  

Looking for a way to balance scientific rigor with human complexity, she enrolled in NUNM’s Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR) program.

Snyder soon found her interests expand to other areas. In a decision she describes as a “spontaneous, strong gallbladder decision”, she became a dual-degree student in the Doctor of Acupuncture with a Chinese Medicine Specialization (DAcCHM) program.

“In hindsight, it was clear I had been finding my way there all along,” Snyder said. “The classical texts felt immediately familiar, as though I had already been listening to them long before having the language to name it.”  

At NUNM, her clinical interests centered on how resonance, perception, and meaning could shape an individual’s internal landscape. Her doctoral work explored the intersections between classical Chinese medical theory and emerging sciences such as quantum biology and systems thinking.  

Snyder became fascinated with Chinese medicine’s view of the body as a responsive, intelligent system shaped by time, rhythm, and relationship.   

Tanya Snyder spoke with NUNM about how she connects research, healing, and philosophy and her efforts to explore new ways of thinking about what it means to heal. 

NUNM: What has your experience been like at NUNM? 

Snyder: My time at NUNM has been deeply transformative. This education has been as much about “becoming” as it has been about learning. Through rigorous training, patient care, and personal cultivation, I’ve been invited to meet complexity with presence and to recognize that the kind of practitioner I hoped to become was already quietly forming.  

This has been a process of returning to myself in a way that now allows me to hold patients in the same possibility: not as problems to be solved, but as people in process, deserving of care and dignity.  

The classical texts became companions, the clinic a mirror, and the community a kind of compass. I found myself surrounded by people who not only cared about knowledge, but also about each other, their patients, and the world we live in. That kind of collective sincerity has shaped me just as much as any textbook or technique. I’ll leave with new tools and deeper understanding, but more than anything, I leave with a clearer sense of what it means to walk alongside healing: mutual, evolving, and deeply human.  

Were there moments in your training that affirmed you were on the right path? 

There wasn’t just one. It’s been a series of quiet confirmations over time. One of the first came during an early qigong retreat. After a long period of movement, I stood in stillness and felt the undeniable sensation of qi quietly coursing through my body with a clarity I didn’t yet have words for. “Quiet on the outside; movement on the inside,” my teacher, Heiner Fruehauf, quietly whispered. At that moment, I understood something I hadn’t fully known before—that there is more, that it had always been there, and that we can meet it again if we learn how to listen. Silent tears welled up with a deep, wordless sense of recognition—not just of something within me, but something shared.   

Later affirmations came through the people around me—in hearing my thoughts about de-pathologizing the body reflected by teachers and peers, through realizing that many so-called “disorders” are actually intelligent adaptations to challenging conditions, and in witnessing patients begin to heal not through being fixed, but through being fully seen. These moments reminded me that healing doesn’t happen in isolation. We need frameworks that honor diversity, listen with curiosity instead of correction, and build trust in systems that have eroded it too often.   

If I’ve felt affirmed, it’s because I’ve been surrounded by others who care deeply—not just about their patients but also their communities and each other. We’re trained to shift paradigms, not just to treat symptoms, and that is a path worth walking together.   

What kind of impact do you hope to have in the future?  

I want to contribute to reshaping the conversation around what it means to heal, both individually and collectively. So much of our current medical model is based on surveillance and correction. We look for what’s wrong and try to fix it, but the body isn’t a machine with broken parts—it’s a dynamic, adaptive system constantly responding to the world around it. I want to offer frameworks that reflect this truth, where symptoms are signals that invite curiosity rather than malfunctions and where care is as much about relationships as it is about techniques.   

My impact won’t be measured just by the patients I see or the research I publish—it will be in the spaces I help make possible. I want to co-create places where people feel safe enough to soften, curious enough to explore, and supported enough to find meaningful change and integration. That might look like a clinic, a retreat space, or a research lab. It might look like writing or mentorship. Whatever form it takes will be centered around coherence—within the body, between people, and across systems.  

Any advice for fellow students as they move forward in their careers?  

Trust that your presence is part of the medicine. It’s easy to get caught in the pressure to know more, do more, or prove yourself—especially in fields still fighting for recognition. The truth is that the most powerful medicine you’ll offer often isn’t the needle or the formula, but your ability to witness someone without needing to fix them. It’s your steadiness in the face of complexity. Your integrity when no one is watching.   

Also, stay resourced. Stay connected to what brings you meaning. Make beauty, not just progress. Surround yourself with people who see you clearly. Say ‘no’ when you need to. Let rest be part of your practice. And remember that being trauma-informed isn’t a checkbox—it’s a way of being that honors the full story of a person, including yours.   

Written by Ashley Villarreal, NUNM Marketing Content Specialist, in collaboration with Tanya Snyder.