Ann C. Zumwalt, PhD

Biography

Dr. Zumwalt has a strong interest in training future biomedical educators and in curriculum and faculty development in medical education, with a particular focus on inclusive practices in medical education. She also has interests in developing educational practices to bridge the foundational and clinical sciences in medical education and in developing graduate students as future biomedical educators.

Dr. Zumwalt is currently co-Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology. Previous major leadership positions include: Chair of the Pre-clerkship Curriculum Subcommittee; Co-director of the year-long first year medical course Principles Integrating Science and Medicine (PrISM); Graduate Program Director for the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology; Course Director of Body Structures (medical gross anatomy) course for 10 years. She has taught advanced clinical anatomy topics at all levels of the medical school curriculum. Within the Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology she is Course Director of the Teaching in the Biomedical Sciences course and Chair of the Vesalius project committee. She is also a former facilitator in the CASOM Mid-career Faculty Leadership Program. Notable teaching awards include the Stanley Robbins Educator of the Year (2018) and Preclinical Educator of the Year (2010) in the School of Medicine.

Service - National
Dr. Zumwalt is actively involved in the American Association for Anatomy, having served on the Board of Directors, Professional Development Committee, and the Advisory Committee of Young Anatomists. She also represented BUSM nationally on the AAMC Committee on Faculty and Academic Societies.

Service - Medical School
Dr. Zumwalt is the immediate past chair of the Pre-clerkship Curriculum Subcommittee of the Medical Education Committee and its Diversity and Inclusion Working Group and also chaired the impactful Gender and Sexual Diversity Vertical Integration Group for the School of Medicine. Dr. Zumwalt also previously chaired the John McCahan Medical Campus Education Day committee and represented the School of Medicine on Boston University Faculty Council.

Service - Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology
Dr. Zumwalt served as the department's Graduate Program Director from 2019-2022 and currently serves on the Graduate Education Committee. She previously represented the department on the BUSM Committee on Faculty Affairs.

Training
Dr. Zumwalt earned her doctorate in 2005 from the Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research there demonstrated that endurance exercise does not affect the surface morphology of skeletal muscle attachments. These findings challenged the rarely questioned assumption that analysis of these features can be used to provide insight into the activity patterns of extinct human and animal populations. Dr. Zumwalt subsequently joined the Animal Locomotion Laboratory as a Research Associate in the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy at Duke University. There she investigated the effects of hypermuscularity on locomotor patterns and bone morphology in rodents. She also collaborated on various research and educational projects with clinicians in radiation oncology, obstetrics and gynecology and neurology.