Oakland, California native Catherine Asaro received a doctorate in physics from Harvard University. She has published a number of papers on theoretical physics and was a physics professor until 1990, when she established Molecudyne Research, which she currently runs. A former ballerina, she has performed with ballets and in musicals on both coasts, and founded the Mainly Jazz Dance program at Harvard. She now teaches at the Caryl Maxwell Classical Ballet. Her husband is John Kendall Cannizzo, an astrophysicist at NASA. They have one daughter and live in Columbia, Maryland.