Diane Ackerman is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, and naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 known best for her work A Natural History of the Senses

A Natural History of the Senses

A Natural History of the Senses is a non-fiction book by Diane Ackerman. In this book, Ackerman examines both the science of how the different senses work, and the varied means by which different cultures have sought to stimulate the senses...

. Her writing style, referring to her best-selling natural history books, can best be described as a blend of poetry, colloquial history, and easy-reading science. She has taught at various universities, including Columbia

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 and Cornell

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, and her essays regularly appear in distinguished popular and literary journals.
Diane Ackerman lived in Waukegan, Illinois until she was 8, when her family moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania.