Dr. Eva R. Garland received her B.A. in chemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in atmospheric physical chemistry from Caltech. She then spent 3 years teaching high school chemistry at a private all-girls school in the Los Angeles area, where Eva developed the summer preparatory course that is the subject of this article. Next, Eva moved to North Carolina and taught General Chemistry at North Carolina State University for two years.

She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina (UNC-Chapel Hill), using mass spectrometry to study reactions of atmospherically relevant aerosols.