Jo Ann Beard (B 1955) is an American Creative nonfiction writer, essayist, journalist and novelist. When she was working as an editor for the space-physics department's monthly publication in the University of Iowa, the 1991 shooting massacre took place there. Her 'Fourth State of Matter' that was published in ‘The New Yorker' in 1996, focuses on her grief, loss and shock of that incident. It also probes and investigates the violent shooting perpetrated by Gang Lu, a physics student, against five colleagues. Before he committed suicide.