Sarah Andrews is an American geologist and author of eleven science-based mystery novels. Many of the novels featuring forensic geologist Em Hansen take place in the Rocky Mountains region of the United States. In 2005, Sarah was awarded an Artists and Writers grant by the National Science Foundation and deployed through mcMurdo Station, Antarctica to remote field camps to research an eleventh novel featuring fictional glaciologist Valena Walker. Sarah has won numerous other awards for her writings, including the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Journalism Award (now called the Geosciences in the Media Award).Sarah Andrews grew up on the East Coast of the United States. Her father was an artist and art teacher and her mother, a teacher of English and comparative religions. Since childhood, she had a passion for exploring the great outdoors, including sailing with her father and wandering solo through the woods and fields during the family's long summers in rural Maine. She left New England to attend college, earning a BA in geology from Colorado College. After college, she stayed in Colorado, working first as a plumber's apprentice on a construction site south of Colorado Springs. When kidded by coworkers about where her "fancy education" had gotten her, she happily taught them about the ancient seaway that had once existed in the area, sharing the fossils she had found up while digging for drain pipes that had been buried by the backhoe. She next took a job at the U.S. Geological Survey, working under legendary Grand Canyon geologist Edwin D. McKee, who had begun his career as Park Naturalist in 1929. She went on to earn a MS in Earth Resources from Colorado State University, studying with Frank Ethridge, then worked as a petroleum geologist with Amoco and ANGUS Petroleum. After being laid off during the oil "bust" of 1986, she moved to California, where she worked as an environmental consultant, began to write, and lectured in the Geology Department at Sonoma State University.