Contact the author directly at jeanne@lostandfoundincuba.com

For information on Jeanne's psychotherapy practice click here.

About the Author

Jeanne Lemkau is a clinical psychologist and writer who lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio with her husband, Phil, and their golden retriever, Gracie. She was involved in Latin America long before immersing herself in matters Cuban. In the 1970s she served as a health educator with the Peace Corps on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua. Later as a faculty member in family medicine and community health at Wright State University, she developed curricula in global health, led medical delegations to Nicaragua, and studied and taught about health care in Cuba. Since 2000 she has traveled to Cuba nine times on research, educational, and humanitarian trips.She serves on the board of the Latin America Working Group Education Fund in Washington, DC.

During 28 years in academe, Jeanne published widely on psychotherapy, women's health, cultural isues, and family medicine. With her introduction to Cuba in 2000, everything changed and she happily veered away from scholary writing. Since earning an MFA in creative nonfiction at Goucher College in 2003, she has focused her writing on personal memoir and nonfiction about health, human rights, and Cuba. She left her university position in 2005 and now devotes herself to the practice of psychotherapy, writing, travel, and activism.

In 2005, Jeanne and her colleague David Strug of Yeshiva University organized and wrote for Love, Loss, and Longing: The Impact of U.S. Travel Policy on Cuban-American Families, an exhibit that documented the negative effects on mental health of  President Bush's 2004 restrictions on travel by Cuban Americans to visit family members in Cuba. The exhibit toured nationally and was published as a book by the Latin America Working Group and the Washington Office on Latin America. In 2008, photos and stories from the exhibit were used in congressional hearings on the travel rights of Cuban Americans, rights reaffirmed by President Obama shortly after his inauguration. Jeanne's current book Lost and Found in Cuba: A tale of midlife rebellion is of a much more personal nature.

Jeanne and Phil have one daughter, Karin, a doctoral student in chemical oceanography at MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusedtts. Lost and Found in Cuba is dedicated to Karin's "joyful adventures." Her most recent such adventure was to descend 800 meters to the floor of the Pacific Ocean in Alvin, the oldest submersible research vessel. Click here to see Karin and Alvin.