The title "A Woman with a Peaceful Life" refers directly to Lisa Hensley, a USAMRIID researcher who was one of Peter Jahrling's younger colleagues. Hensley's father, Michael Hensley, was active in pharmaceutical research and in finding ways to understand and treat HIV; though Hensley herself was not always studious, she did attend Johns Hopkins (in part to play on its lacrosse team). However, Hensley's close relationship with her father led her to academic interests that resembled his, and after leaving Johns Hopkins, she earned a Ph.D. in a disease-related specialty (epidemiology, microbiology) from UNC Chapel Hill. She then went to work at USAMRIID, first on SHF (a monkey-borne virus) and then on Ebola.

Hensley found that life as an Ebola researcher had both amusing and anxiety-ridden moments. She was trained by Steve Hatfill, a doctor who had at one point served with the U.S. Special Forces and who would eat candy bars even while wearing his "blue suit," the USAMRIID full-body apparel needed for working with live viruses and bacteria. She also had a brief panic when she thought (mistakenly, as it turned out) that she had punctured both her blue suit and the safety glove underneath in the presence of live Ebola.