Sharon Bohn Gmelch earned her PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her interests include visual anthropology, gender, ethnicity, and tourism. She is the author of eight books including Nan: The Life of an Irish Travelling Woman (1986/91), which was a finalist for anthropology's Margaret Mead award, and The Tlingit Encounter with Photography (2008). She also co-produced an ethnographic film on the Tlingit. She has conducted research in Ireland, Barbados, Alaska, and the Napa Valley and recently published Tasting the Good Life: Wine Tourism in the Napa Valley (2011, with George Gmelch). She is currently engaged in a cross-cultural study of tour guides. She teaches courses on women, the museum, visual anthropology, and tourism, and an intersession term on culture and the environment.