Anneliese Korner, Stanford expert on neurodevelopment of premature babies, dies at 91

Anneliese Korner

Anneliese Korner, PhD, a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, died of natural causes on March 4 at her home in Palo Alto. She was 91.

Korner was a clinical and development psychologist whose 35-year career focused on the study of full-term and preterm infants. She led hundreds of interventional studies involving premature babies, published more than 200 scientific articles on early development issues and ultimately developed an observational instrument to assess the neurobehavioral maturity of preterm infants — a tool that is now used around the world.

She is fondly remembered by her former colleagues. “Anneliese loved life — whether personally appreciating, even glorying in, each day, and making and keeping friends over many decades, or professionally valuing each individual infant and mother with whom she worked,” said Helena Kraemer, PhD, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a longtime friend and collaborator.

Korner was born in Munich, Germany, in 1918. Concerned about the growing wave of anti-Semitism in the country, her parents sent her to Switzerland at the age of 16; there, she studied with well-known child psychologist Jean Piaget, PhD, at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva. She came to the United States and earned her PhD at Columbia University before working as a clinical psychologist for 19 years, first at the University of Chicago Medical School and then at the Mount Zion Psychiatric Clinic in San Francisco.

In the early 1960s, Korner became interested in studying individual differences among babies — at an age before they could be affected by family environment. She contacted David Hamburg, MD, then-chair of psychiatry at Stanford, with her idea. “He decided to give me an appointment in his department, provided I could get a grant to support my research,” Korner wrote in an unpublished short story. “I applied for NIH support and nine months later, I succeeded. And this began a 35-year career….”

She continued this line of work and led other studies of newborns, including ones showing that placing premature babies in gently oscillating waterbeds improved the babies’ behavioral development and reduced breathing and heart rate problems. As a precursor to this work, Korner studied the impact of swaddling and rocking on the alertness and development of newborn rats. “I still get the giggles visualizing Anneliese and her partner, Dr. Evelyn Thoman, swaddling those little rats and putting them in mechanical rocking chairs,” said Kraemer.

Kraemer said Korner, who became a full professor in 1982, was most proud of her work on the newborn assessment tool, called the NAPI, and advocated for its use and advised on clinical research projects even after her 1994 retirement.

Also in retirement, Korner turned to creative writing, completing more than 30 short stories and publishing her autobiography, Across the Street from Adolf Hitler. The 2002 memoir chronicled her experience growing up near Hitler’s private residence, witnessing discrimination against Jewish people and being interrogated by the Gestapo, in connection with the arrest of a young friend, at the age of 15. “It so happened my encounter with the Gestapo was the single most important turning point of my life,” she wrote, explaining this was what prompted her parents to send her to Switzerland.

Korner, who used the last name Korner-Kalman in her personal life, is survived by her daughter, Sue Kalman; son-in-law, Ray Persico; and grandsons Joseph and David Persico. She was preceded in death by her husband Sumner (Kal) Kalman, MD, professor emeritus of pharmacology at Stanford.

Arrangements for a memorial service are pending. Those interested can e-mail Korner’s daughter at sue.kalman@comcast.net.

In lieu of flowers, Korner requested that donations in her memory be made to Planned Parenthood of Mar Monte.