Raised in Paterson, New Jersey, Sherida Yoder teaches writing, literature, and creative writing at Felician University in Lodi, NJ. She also taught at Rutgers, where she earned a B.A. in Zoology and her masters and Ph.D. in English. She studied developmental biology at Temple University and at the Marine Biology Labs at Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute in Mass. Her poetry combines the detail of a naturalist with the passion and perception of a poet. In 2018, she won a three-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for Prism Paterson, to create a minor and certificate program for undergraduate study of the art, literature, and music of Paterson, NJ.