Meet Gigi — the professor her students call "Dr. Giggles."

Gigi Otálvaro has spent her whole career studying what bodies can express. She designed her own major in hybridity and performance at Brown, earned an MA in Visual and Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts, and completed her PhD in Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford — a scholar of how movement carries meaning.

Somewhere along the way, the research turned personal: the practices she studied didn't just signify — they healed. That discovery reshaped her work. As Associate Director of Stanford Living Education, she directed the LifeWorks Program for Integrative Learning, an interdisciplinary program weaving scholarship, creative expression, mindfulness, and embodied practice. She created and taught Stanford's first-ever for-credit qigong class, and presented her work at Harvard Medical School's Science of Tai Chi and Qigong Conference.

Then came the laughter. Certified as a Laughter Yoga Leader and a Yoqi® Qigong instructor, Gigi found that the contemplative and the comic aren't opposites — they're partners. Her students agree: they're the ones who started calling her "Dr. Giggles."

Today she teaches public classes at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health, bringing a scholar's depth and a clown's timing to every session. Her 2024 book was published by University of California Press.