About the Author: Susan Aminoff, Ph.D. taught sociology in the Los Angeles Community College District. A member of the Board of Trustees of Santa Monica College and the Broad Stage for the Performing Arts, she received her B.A. in sociology from State University of New York at Stony Brook, and holds two Master s degrees, one in Gerontology and one in Sociology, and a Ph.D. in the Sociology of Education from the University of Southern California. Dr. Aminoff teaches that sociology is another way of knowing. Writing about your life highlights the importance of context in determining outcome. As you write your autobiography, the power of social context is clearly illustrated. Your life would have evolved very differently if you had been born in another place, or time, or under different social circumstances. Marlene Strome Wagner, Ph.D. has, over more than three decades, enjoyed many roles at USC, including in the Office of the Provost, the Graduate School, the Office of the Vice President for Health Affairs, and most recently as Associate Dean for External Relations in the School of Social Work from 1994-2013. She graduated cum laude from Boston University s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and earned her Master s and Ph.D. degrees in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California. She also holds a Certificate in Gerontology from the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. Dr. Wagner is especially interested in the power of narrative to shape our lives and the stories that comprise them. Story-making is a way to give meaning to the random events and unexpected surprises of our lives and to weave them into coherent plots.