Joan Slonczewski

Joan Lyn Slonczewski (born 1956) is a microbiologist at Kenyon College and a science fiction writer. Her novel "The Highest Frontier" shows a college in a space habitat financed by a tribal casino and protected from deadly ultraphytes by Homeworld Security. Her best known book, "A Door into Ocean" (Campbell Award) depicts an ocean world run by genetic engineers who repel an interstellar invasion using nonviolent methods similar to Tahrir Square. In her book "Brain Plague," intelligent microbes invade human brains and establish microbial cities. She also authored with John W. Foster the leading microbiology textbook, Microbiology: An Evolving Science (W. W. Norton).