AnnMarie Thomas

When AnnMarie Thomas was in elementary school she wanted to be an actress, or a musician, or a painter, or an aerialist. Though none of these individually became her career, many of her projects pull together elements of these childhood dream jobs. While getting her undergraduate degree in Ocean Engineering from MIT, she minored in music composition. Later, while getting her PhD in Mechanical Engineering (focusing on robotics) from Caltech, she spent her evenings teaching (and sometimes working on installation art) at the Art Center College of Design.

AnnMarie spent 17 years teaching at the University of St. Thomas, where she was a Professor in both the School of Engineering and the Opus College of Business. She founded and led the Playful Learning Lab (PLL) at UST, where she and her students explored the intersection of art, technology and K-12 education. Collaboration is at the heart of her work, and her PLL projects involved partners such as OK Go, the Alinea restaurant group, Metro Deaf School, Twin Cities Trapeze Center, and the LEGO foundation. She is the author of “Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Education,” the co-creator of Squishy Circuits, and the co-founder and executive director of OK Go Sandbox.

AnnMarie now leads Listo Idea Co., through which she consults on projects ranging from workshop design to ocean focused VR/AR. She is an enthusiastic amateur at a wide variety of hobbies including trapeze, magic, and painting.