Dia Michels is a premier promoter of maternal, child, and family health. She founded Platypus Media, an independent press, in Washington, DC, in 2000, to promote the concepts and practice of attachment parenting.

An internationally published science and parenting writer, she is the author of the five-book Look What I See! Where Can I Be? series; the award-winning If My Mom Were a Platypus: Mammal Babies and Their Mothers; and Zack in the Middle. She is co-author of 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Science; Breastfeeding At A Glance: Facts, Figures and Trivia about Breastfeeding; Milk, Money & Madness: The Culture and Politics of Breastfeeding; and A Woman’s Guide to Yeast Infections [out of print]. She is the editor of Breastfeeding Annual International and the newly revised Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers.

A popular speaker, she lectures frequently at conferences, universities, libraries, and schools around the country. She has delivered talks at state, regional, national, and international conferences for La Leche League, International Lactation Consultant Association, American College of Nurse Midwives, Lamaze International, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She teaches classes on mammal reproduction and lactation at children’s and science museums around the US and is a commentator for Public Radio, International. Her articles have been published in People, Parenting, Mothering, Parents, Baby Talk, Family Fun, Nurturing, and the Washington Post.

In her work as the founder and director of Watkins After-School Enrichment Program in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood, she cultivated a creative approach to non-fiction for children. The emphasis of the Platypus Media list is the result of years of work in the after-school program, preparing children to be health-conscious adults and effective parents by grounding them in science.

In 2006, Dia launched a second publishing house. Science, Naturally! is committed to teaching science in fun and intriguing ways to children in grades 4-8.

A native of Los Angeles, she is a graduate of Chadwick School. While working toward her economics degree at Brandeis University, she studied at the University of Edinburgh and the Institute de France. She lives in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, DC, with her husband, a NASA physicist, their three children, and three cats. She can be reached at Dia@PlatypusMedia.com.