Kate Pickett OBE is a British professor, author, and activist. Pickett first studied biological anthropology at Cambridge before continuing her training at Cornell University, where she studied nutritional sciences, and the University of California Berkeley, where she completed her PhD in epidemiology. According to her profile on the University of York website, Pickett is a Professor of Epidemiology at the university’s Department of Health Sciences. In addition to leading the Public Health & Society research group, she is also the Associate Director for the university’s Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity. She also serves as the academic co-director of the organization Health Equity North, and is a co-founder of her own non-profit, The Equality Trust. Pickett received an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her contributions to scholarship.

The Spirit Level is Pickett’s first book. She later published The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity, and Improve Everyone’s Well-Being, which is a continuation of the topics explored in The Spirit Level. Pickett brings her years of experience as an epidemiologist to this work, using studies and statistics to draw conclusions about how class and income differences affect people’s health and lifespans, and to suggest solutions to these societal problems.