Joan L. Slonczewski is a professor of biology at Kenyon College, where she teaches microbiology every year. She received her Ph.D. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and did her postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania. She has earned a silver medal in the National Professor of the Year program of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. She has published numerous research articles with undergraduate authors on pH regulation, as well as publishing numerous science-fiction novels. One of these novels, A Door into the Ocean, earned the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.