Kate Brown is a Distinguished Professor in the History of Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of four previous prize-wining books, including A Biography of No Place, which won the George Louis Beer Prize from the American Historical Association, Plutopia, which won the Dunning and Beveridge prizes from the American Historical Association and Manual for Survival, which was a finalist for the 2020 NBCC Award. She currently plants her gardens in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in Vermont.