Denise Clark Pope (Stanford University AB ’88, Ph.D. ’99, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Ed.M. ’89), is a lecturer at Stanford University School of Education. As director of the Stressed Out Students project, she has studied the rising stress and anxiety levels of middle school and high school students, and has developed practical intervention methods. Her book, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001) was named Notable Book in Education by the American School Board Journal, 2001.

The mother of three young children, Denise notes that homework anxiety and perfectionism take root early on. Over time, stress builds and expresses itself in different ways. Cheating, for example, is a by-product of stress. “People don’t realize how pervasive it is,” she explains. In her talks, Denise provides strategies specific to her audiences and applicable at home, school and community levels. “As a community, we need to redefine what we mean by success.”