Photograph by Richard Ressman

Dr. Rico, a professor of English and Creative Arts at San Jose State University, lectures widely on the application of brain research to writing, to learning, and to creative process—most recently on the roles of improvisation, play, and human time-consciousness in creativity. Focusing on creativity, split-brain research, and the writing process, she developed clustering in her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University in 1976. Honored as President’s Scholar in 1986, she was selected Teacher/Scholar in 1993. In 1992 she held an Endowed Chair at Notre Dame in Belmont, CA. Her classic Writing the Natural Way, which sold over half a million copies, is out in a newly revised second edition (March, 2000).