Sister Dang Nghiem was born in 1968 in Vietnam, the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an American soldier. She lost her mother at the age of twelve and immigrated to the US at the age of seventeen. Living in various foster homes, she went on to earn a medical degree from the University of California–San Francisco. She eventually quit her practice as a doctor to live at Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village, where she was ordained a nun in 2000. She is the author of a memoir, Healing: A Woman’s Journey from Doctor to Nun (2010), and Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing and Spirit (2015). Her latest book is Flowers in the Dark, a guidebook to healing trauma with mindfulness practice.