Maria Smilios is the author of The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis. A native of New York City, Maria holds a Masters of Arts in religion and literature from Boston University, where she was a Henry Luce Scholar and a Presidential Scholar. She also taught essay and research writing in the university’s writing program. In 2007, she left Boston and moved back to New York City to teach at an all-girls high school. There she created and ran an intensive summer writing program for teens. Smilios formerly worked as a development editor in the biomedical sciences editing books in lung diseases, pediatric and breast cancer, neurology and ocular diseases. In the past, she has written for The Guardian, American Nurse, Narratively, The Rumpus, Dame Magazine and The Forward, among others.