Rita Hsiao was born and raised in Poughkeepsie, NY, USA, the American-born daughter of Chinese parents. At UC San Diego, she majored in artificial intelligence, but decided t olook for a job in writing. After writing a spec script fo r"The Wonder Years, " she joined Disney. She wrote a pilot of her own called "Laurie Hill", and worked on "Ellen", before moving to "Thunder Alley" and "All American Girl". She is currently working on the Disney films "Dinosaur" and "Toy Story 2."