is the prize-winning, best-selling author of seven volumes and the recipient of the 2015 National Humanities Medal. His first book, The House of Morgan, won the National Book Award; Washington: A Life won the Pulitzer Prize for biography; and Alexander Hamilton—the inspiration for the musical—won the George Washington Book Prize. He is one of only three living biographers to have received the Gold Medal in Biography of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A past president of PEN America, Chernow has received eight honorary doctorates. He resides in Brooklyn, New York.