Bio

Olivia Campbell started writing as a young girl - mysteries fashioned after her beloved Nancy Drew. As a teen, her passion for ballet saw her train to become a professional dancer. A broken foot prompted Campbell's pivot to arts journalism. In college, an unplanned pregnancy, complicated birth, and postpartum depression turned her writing interest from the arts to medicine. 

 

Now, she is a journalist, essayist, and author focusing on the intersections of medicine, women, history, and nature. A regular contributor to National Geographic, her work has also appeared in The Atlantic, New York Magazine/The Cut, History.com, The Washington Post, The Guardian, SELF, Aeon, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, Literary Hub, Atlas Obscura, Good Housekeeping, Catapult, Parents, and Undark, among others. (See Portfolio.)

 

Campbell is the New York Times bestselling author of "Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine" and "Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History." She holds a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor's degree in journalism from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers. Campbell was born in Virginia and now lives outside Philadelphia with her husband, sons, and cats.