For the past 33 years Patricia Ellman has been involved with improving the English of students and professors with English as a foreign language. She was part of a team teaching an English-language Writing Skills course at the University of Amsterdam, and has edited many Ph.D. theses, academic articles, and books, for a global clientele. She is a Chartered Town Planner and has worked in planning in London, Glasgow and Cambridge. Her Applied Geography work at the London School of Economics was published in a research study for the Royal Commission on Local Government in England. She has a B.A. in Geography (with Geology) from University College London, and an M.Sc in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and spent a postgraduate year at Moscow State University. She lives close to an Amsterdam canal with her husband.