Suzanne Preston Blier (b.1948) is from Burlington, Vt. After falling love with Africa during a tour in the Peace Corps tour, she went on to earn her Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. Now Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American History at Harvard University, her books address various issues of African art and architecture, and have won an array of awards. She also has received a Simon Guggenheim fellowship, and others from Fulbright, the NEH, the Getty, the National Gallery of Art, and the Social Science Research Council.