Jo Chopra McGowan is an American who has lived in India since 1981. She is married to Ravi Chopra and they have three children and four grands. The founder and director of Latika, a leading non-profit in India providing services to disabled children and adults, she was a caregiver for her disabled daughter Moy Moy until her death at 28 as well as for four elderly family members.

A writer and former criminal (she is a peace movement/anti-abortion activist jailed in America on a dozen occasions) she is a columnist for Commonweal Magazine in New York and the author of five books and hundreds of articles for Indian and international newspapers and journals. 

She trained as a lay midwife, is amusingly fluent in Hindi, and loves public speaking, opera, walking, reading and wine.