Founder of the National Institute for Play, Stuart Brown began his studies of play by investigating the life history of Charles Whitman, the 1966 University of Texas Tower mass murderer. Finding profound play deprivation at the root of extreme violence, he dedicated his career to documenting the consequences of play and the benefits of a play-rich life. Over 35 years of clinical practice he collected more than 6,000 play histories, demonstrating the active presence of play in the lives of highly successful individuals and the negative consequences that accumulate in play-deprived lives. Trained in general medicine, psychiatry, and clinical research, he founded NIFP to translate the science of play into a public health tool.
