Susan Engel earned a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in 1980, and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from CUNY Graduate Center in 1985. She is currently a senior lecturer in psychology and director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College. Engel has taught students from age 3 to adults. In addition to journal articles and book chapters, Engel has written three books, The Stories Children Tell: Making Sense of the Narratives of Childhood (W. H. Freeman, 1985), Context Is Everything: The Nature of Memory (W. H. Freeman, 1997) and most recently, Real Kids: Creating Meaning in Everyday Life (Harvard University Press, 2005). She is also the co-founder and educational adviser to an experimental school in eastern Long Island, the Hayground School, and writes a regular column on teaching, “Lessons,” for the New York Times. Engel’s research interests include the development of autobiographical memory, narrative processes in childhood, imagination and play in childhood and the development of curiosity. She lives with her husband and three sons in New Marlborough, Mass.