Originally trained in pediatrics and public health, Sayantani DasGupta is a Senior Lecturer at the Graduate Program in Narrative Medicine, the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, all at Columbia University in New York. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed, Bengali folktale and string theory-inspired Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond books, the first of which—The Serpent’s Secret—was a Bank Street Best Book of the Year, a Booklist Best Middle Grade Novel of the 21st Century, and an EB White Read Aloud Honor Book. She has a fourth book in the Kingdom Beyond series, Force of Fire coming out from Scholastic in May 2021, and a biography of Dr. Virginia Apgar coming out as part of Chelsea Clinton’s She Persisted series coming out from Philomel in April 2021.