Brief Bio
Christina VandePol, M.D. is a writer, physician, and former elected coroner whose creative nonfiction has been published in The Sun, Killer Nashville Magazine, The Rumpus, and Months to Years. She is seeking a publisher for her completed memoir, Madam Coroner, winner of the 2025 Killer Nashville Claymore Award for nonfiction. Recognized as an expert on coroners and death investigation, Christina has been interviewed and quoted by the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN, NBC News, the LA Times, and multiple regional and local media outlets.
Long Bio
Christina VandePol, M.D. is a writer, physician, and former coroner whose creative nonfiction has been published in The Sun, Killer Nashville Magazine, The Rumpus, and Months to Years. She is seeking a publisher for her completed memoir, Madam Coroner, winner of the 2025 Killer Nashville Claymore Award for nonfiction.
Christina was the first woman and first Democrat to be elected coroner of suburban Chester County, Pennsylvania in over two centuries. During four stormy years (2018-2022), she steered her office through both the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic, overseeing 5,697 death investigations and achieving the advanced level of national certification as a medicolegal death investigator (F-ABMDI).
Recognized as an expert on coroners and death investigation, Christina has been interviewed and quoted by the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN, NBC News, the LA Times, and multiple regional and local media outlets on topics including drug deaths, unclaimed bodies, the COVID-19 pandemic, deaths in custody, and climate-related deaths.
Christina has been a speaker for the Delaware Valley Chapter of Sisters in Crime, the Pennsylvania Sierra Club, and the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, among others. A member of the Nonfiction Authors Association, Sisters in Crime, and the International Association of Coroners and Medical Examiners, Christina also serves as a Board Member of her Medical Society.
Born in the Netherlands, Christina emigrated to the United States when she was four and became the first in her family to attend college. A graduate of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Christina is board-certified in internal medicine and endocrinology. Before her election as Coroner of Chester County, PA, she worked as an internist, rural emergency-room doctor, clinical researcher, educator, and medical writer. Christina co-authored an academic study titled Coroner/Medical Examiner Services in Pennsylvania, and is the creator of Cause & Manner, a Medicolegal Death Investigation Blog. When she’s not writing, Christina volunteers at a free clinic, tends a wild garden in southeastern Pennsylvania, and supports the election of other progressive women to public office.