d.school Teaching Team

A passion for exercise, sports and science drew Anne to the field of exercise physiology and it has been an invigorating choice. She has researched how the body adapts to acute and chronic exercise and how it can acclimatize to environmental stresses such as high altitude and heat. She has also explored the effects of aging and gender on physiology and metabolism. Anne has a special interest in encouraging people to be more physically active throughout life as a means to promote health and wellness. She has done research on many different types of people (healthy, sick, young, old, sedentary and elite athletes) and in many locations including the 14,100 ft top of Pikes Peak , CO. As she frequently points out, it’s a great job. What’s not to like about work that allows you to explore whatever interests you, occasionally pays you to live on the top of a mountain for months at a time, and has as its main question “What if”? To accompany her physiology research, Anne has taught Exercise Physiology and Applied Physiology and metabolism classes within the Program in Human Biology since 1997. Now, in her new role as the Director of the Mobility Division within the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL), she comes to the d.school to team teach the “Agile Aging” class. The mission of the SCL is to use creative thinking, science, and technology to assure that long-lived people reach their later years physically fit, mentally sharp and financially secure. More specifically, the Mobility Division focuses on enhancing independence and quality of life as people age by assuring that older adults remain mobile. The Agile Aging class is an extension of that mission as it encourages students to use design thinking to identify needs and develop products or programs to enhance movement in older adults.