My journey towards the completion of this book begins with a lifetime outdoors but, more specifically, with my entry to graduate school to pursue a PhD at the age of 35. With my degree in hand at the age of 40, I followed my passion for the out-of-doors and found myself in southern Florida. Somewhere north of 50, I found a second passion, natural fragrances, and perfumery. This exploration led me to create perfumes, teach classes, and explore the ingredients I used in depth. As I discussed botanical ingredients like jasmine with students and researched the backstory of aromatic plants, I wrote for myself and for my blog. My two lives came together with the help of friends in perfumery and I signed a contract for my book with Yale University Press at the age of 63 and saw my first book in print at the age of 66. So many people supported me and encouraged me beginning with my father who would bring home copies of Scientific American for me to read (I was a teenager at the time but appreciated the thought), faculty at the universities where I worked, and the amazing community of natural and artisan perfumers, incense-makers, bloggers, and distillers.

 A bit more about me. I am a child of the American west and Midwest and spent my life outdoors hiking trails, scrambling over rocks, lying in the grass, and listening to the wind in the trees. My various gardens have contained roses, cactus, gardenias, irises, poppies, violets, jasmine, mangoes, blueberries, bat flowers, passion vines, herbs, and orchids. In love with creatures and flowers from the age of 5, I joined the zoology club in high school and graduated college with a degree in zoology. My PhD research involved a continental study of migratory raptors, comparing morphology and genetics of kestrel, accipiter, hawk, and falcon. Large scale patterns continued to interest me, and I went on to research land use and biodiversity patterns, spending seventeen years as a wildlife biologist, getting up close and personal with hawks, falcons, kingsnakes, turtles, wading birds, and a variety of other animal life. As a second act, I trained as a natural perfumer and founded a company to make and sell perfumes and soap.

I have found that fragrance brings people together, that there are no ‘right’ answers when evaluating jasmine, and that people experience the same scent different ways. As I shared stories about the origins of natural perfume ingredients, I found myself coming full circle as I also taught about environmental and geographic patterns in plants that create the aromatic molecules used for perfumery. Which naturally led to a combination of science and art and writing about fragrance from a natural history perspective. I have lived in a variety of places from Nevada to Florida in the US, abroad in Sweden and Japan, traveling with family to visit many more. I currently reside on Amelia Island in northern Florida where I am active in shorebird and sea turtle monitoring and serve on the board of Friends of Talbot Islands State Parks, a nonprofit dedicated to the support of these important barrier island parks and their flora and fauna. My book Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance is available at Yale University Press, Amazon, and indie bookstores near you.