Rebecca Kuang studies Chinese history at Georgetown University, focusing on military history, collective memory and the legacy of traumas in Chinese society. She spent a gap year teaching debate and rhetoric to high school students in China, during which she wrote the first novel in a trilogy that is being published by HarperCollins. She has a passion for teaching: she has been an instructor at summer debate institutes for five years running, and leads a mentor group for Georgetown sophomores interested in creative writing