Dr. Joan Vernikos

Well-known expert in stress and healthy aging.

Dr. Joan Vernikos is a well-known expert in stress and healthy aging. Since retiring from NASA as Director of Life Sciences following a career there as both a researcher and administrator, she has committed to bringing her knowledge and insights on healthy living to the general public. Published in 2011, her book Sitting Kills, Moving Heals: How Everyday Movement Will Prevent Pain, Illness and early Death – and Exercise Alone Won’t, shows how modern sedentary lifestyles contribute to poor health, obesity, and diabetes, and how health can be dramatically improved simply with continuous, low-intensity movement that challenges the force of gravity.