Kate Lorig is the Director of the Stanford Patient Education Research Center and Professor of Medicine in the Stanford School of Medicine. She came to Stanford in 1979 while a graduate student at Cal to develop and research an educational program that emphasized self-help skills for people with arthritis. This program became the Arthritis Self-Help Course, which is now offered to thousands of people with arthritis in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, South Africa, Scandinavia and elsewhere, and was the prototype for the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program, the Positive Self-Management Program for HIV/AIDS, the Back Pain Self-Management Program, and others. Dr. Lorig has authored several books and many articles about arthritis, chronic disease in general, health education and behavioral science.