Kenyon biology students know Professor Joan Slonczewski as a gifted scientist who specializes in genetics and microbiology. Local elementary-school students know her as something of a magician, able to conjure a parade of colors in a bottle or make tiny creatures appear under the microscope lens.

Readers would say she is scientist and magician both, as the author of five critically acclaimed science-fiction novels. Slonczewski inhabits all of these identities quite comfortably. Since coming to Kenyon in 1984, she has published numerous research papers, received a National Science Foundation grant, and earned a silver medal in the Professor of the Year Program sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

Her fictional magic may be experienced in The Wall around Eden (1989), Daughter of Elysium (1993), The Children Star (1998), Brain Plague (2000), and other novels. The books reflect her interest in social issues and the politics of war and peace. Writing science fiction, says Slonczewski, also enhances her teaching because it suggests ways to get ideas about science across to people-ways to show how science profoundly affects daily life.