Dr. Joan Vernikos is a published author, public speaker, entrepreneur, and consultant. She is the former Director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division (1993-2000) and President of Thirdage, LCC.
Based on the international success of her first book, The G-Connection: Harness Gravity and Reverse Aging, she again is pursuing her passion for communicating the social and health benefits of space research to the general public with a follow up “how-to” guide. This sequel provides readers with ways of adapting their lifestyle by using gravity efficiently to stay healthy and maintain an active life.
Dr. Vernikos also writes editorials and columns about her research on stress, space, and gravity for various magazines like Muscle & Fitness and Popular Science. Her writings and lectures focus on her 30 years of pioneering NASA laboratory research at California’s NASA Ames Research Center, dating from 1964 when she was recruited as the first scientist to explore the effects of stress on astronauts.
She later studied the effects of gravity reduction on healthy men and women who volunteered for a long-term bed rest research project. Vernikos reflects, “It seemed to me that the countermeasure treatments to spaceflight effects we were testing on astronauts, and our bed rest volunteers, could also be applied to all of us to delay, prevent, or even reverse many of the symptoms we commonly associate with old aging.”
Dr. Vernikos’s uniqueness in her field as a sought after public speaker is based not only on her highly regarded research, but on her charisma and ability to communicate complex science into understandable terms. She speaks to an array of audiences from the informed public to Congressional Representatives. Examples include Stanford’s Café Scientifique; The National Academy of Science’s Space Studies Board Town Hall Meeting in Washington D.C.; The Aerospace State Association Conference in Denver, Colorado presented to 450 science teachers; several American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) group functions; the 1995 World Economic Forum; and the Executive Women’s Roundtable.
Dr. Joan Vernikos is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, The Space Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences, The Advisory Committee for Human Spaceflight, and The Microgravity and Exploration Board of the European Space Agency. She is space editor for Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, a fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, and holds several patents including one for the human-powered centrifuge.
Originally published July 28th, 2008
by Jennifer
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