Dr. Barbara E. Ainsworth has had a long and distinguished career in higher education. Since 2013 she has been a Regents' Professor at Arizona State University where she is a tenured full Professor in the Exercise and Wellness program in the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion.
Her career in higher education has spanned the county. She began her education on the west coast as an undergraduate in Physical Education at California State University, Fresno. She came to UMD for a Master of Arts in Physical Education/Education and went on to teach at the College of St. Benedict. She continued her graduate education with a second Masters in Public Health from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and subsequently entered the PhD program in Exercise Physiology. She served as a Teaching/Research Assistant and as a post-doctoral associate at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for several years. Dr. Ainsworth left Minnesota to assume teaching, research and eventually leadership positions at the University of South Carolina at Columbia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Ainsworth returned to the west coast to serve as Professor and chair at San Diego University before beginning her current appointment at Arizona State University.
A prolific career-long researcher, she has a vita that delineates over 300 published scholarly works pertaining to Nutrition, Epidemiology, Exercise Physiology and Human Activity. Dr. Ainsworth has also been very active in service to her field. Amongst her many contributions and honors, she is a past President, Vice-President and Trustee of the American College of Sports Medicine.