Yvonne Daniel is a specialist in dance performance and Caribbean societies and has performed and produced professionally. After earning her Ph.D. in anthropology, she published Rumba (1995), Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé (2005), and Caribbean and Atlantic Diaspora Dance: Igniting Citizenship (2011). She has produced four documentary videos on Caribbean dance and African Diaspora religions and is credited with more than 40 articles, encyclopedia entries and chapters. Her book on sacred performance won the de la Torre Bueno prize from the Society of Dance History Scholars for best dance research of 2006. She is a Ford Foundation Fellow, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, and has been a Visiting Scholar at Mills College and the Smithsonian Institution. Daniel continues to do research, publish and give presentations in both academic and community settings. She has four sons and 10 grandchildren.