Diana Lee Santamaria has been an early childhood educator since 2008. She has a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education along with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Studies. Diana’s preschool learning books entitled, DLee’s Color Hunt, DLee’s Outdoor Countdown, and DLee's First Day of School are her first three educational books in her series. As an educator, Diana wanted to create books that were authentic to her students, while enhancing their overall developmental abilities. Thus, Diana has incorporated diversity into every character within her books. As a woman of Hispanic descent, Diana understands that children need to see characters that are representative of themselves. As a result, she created the character DLee based on her own physical appearance as a child and “DLee’s World” based on a compilation of her own childhood and experiences as a teacher. Diana’s books encompass her creativity and quirkiness, while still maintaining relevance to her preschool readers, ages three to five. Her scholastic series aims to answer the educational questions and challenges that her readers face throughout the beginning stages of their lives.

"As a child who struggled with reading, I understand the importance of literacy and making it fun for children, so I work on bringing all these elements into DLee's World."

As of 2014, Diana has written fifteen “DLee” stories. Her overall goals for the books are to keep her readers engaged and wanting to read more, while expanding their learning.