Stuart Thompson

Background

About Stuart Thompson

I am Professor in the Biology Department in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University where I specialize in cellular and systems neuroscience, A current passion of mine is to design and live-test new ideas in undergraduate education and I am pursuing this with Stanford's Freshman/Sophomore College. Since 2007, I also served as Adjunct Professor in the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (the famous d.school,Stanford School of Engineering). where I am one of four key faculty members in a course entitled "From Play to Innovation". My laboratory and research activities are located at Stanford's marine biology research and teaching facility, The Hopkins Marine Station, in Pacific Grove, CA on beautiful Monterey Bay. My work focuses on nervous system adaptation to life in the sea. I have served as chair of the panel of Scientific Advisers for The National Institute for Play, a non-profit group that is exploring the science of play behavior and the importance of a healthy play lifestyle to the welfare of individuals and institutions. I maintain a website neuromavin.com. that is an effort to decypher the newest and most importance in neuroscience and present them. It is an experiment in social media intended to help non-specialists understand the rapid advances in neuroscience that are having huge impact on medicine, understanding aging and understanding the wonderful richness of our lives.