Dr. Mary Lee Grant has lived in Vietnam for three years, teaching history and English at universities in Hanoi. She has also served as a consultant for the Vietnamese government and the United Nations on gender and climate change in the Mekong Delta. Mary Lee has published articles on contemporary Vietnam and written several books about teaching English to Vietnamese students. She also edited Artist in Exile, a memoir of Kieu Chinh, a Vietnamese-American actor who starred in The Joy Luck Club and M*A*S*H.

A career journalist who has worked for publications ranging from the Associated Press to the Washington Post, Mary Lee reported for years on the Texas -Mexico border. She earned her PhD in history with a focus on comparative border studies from Texas A&M University and an undergraduate degree in history from Yale. In her spare time, she enjoys volunteering with elephants at sanctuaries in Thailand.