Valerie Suydam

Valerie is an Anthropology major at Grinnell College, where she also volunteers and has been known to perform in theatre productions, including Midsummer Night's Dream (Titania), Galileo Galilei, and Women of Troy. She has spent her summers working all over the country, such as conducting graduate student research on the kinematic motions of flintnappers at George Washington University (2009), and The Great Ape Trust, a research facility for bonobos and orangutans in Des Moines, IA, where she studied language skills in a bonobo colony (2007). She has also interned at the B'nai B'rith National Museum located in Washington, D.C (2008). Last fall, she studied abroad for the first time in London, traveling also to Ireland and Bruges, Belgium.

Valerie grew up in Tomball, TX, and she was raised with an open-mind towards other cultures and religions. She attends college in IA, but she tends to spend her summers in as many different locations as possible, such as Colorado and D.C. Valerie has been to over half of the states in the U.S., as well as lived in London and visited Europe. In the future, Valerie aspires to write high quality popular fiction that challenges the horizons and ideals of the American public.