Sara Madden is a cultural and ecology anthropologist, archaeologist, military historian, and award-winning author whose life's work centers on recovering hidden narratives and amplifying marginalized voices. She is the founder of Velvet Pumpkin Books, a publishing company dedicated to inclusive children's literature. Sara's humanitarian work shapes everything she writes. As an American Red Cross volunteer, she serves as an International Humanitarian Law educator and Youth Lead, teaching young people about the Geneva Conventions and the rules that protect the wounded, the prisoners, and the dead. Through Service to Armed Forces, she visits veterans in VA hospitals monthly, witnessing the long aftermath of war. Through Restoring Family Links, she helps refugees and asylum-seeking women search for family members separated by conflict and displacement-continuing work that Clara Barton began over 150 years ago. She also volunteers with Women of the World refugee center, combining her humanitarian commitments to serve forcibly displaced women. This book emerged from Sara's own inheritance.

Her great-grandfather survived World War I but came home blind, his memoirs describing life among the dead in the trenches. Her grandfather flew gliders at nineteen in World War II, was held as a POW, and only spoke of gathering his comrades' broken bodies in the final days of his life. Her uncles served in Vietnam and never spoke of it at all. In 2023, Sara stood in a field in Foy, outside Bastogne, Belgium, where her husband's great-uncle had been buried-then disinterred and shipped home. In that moment, she saw the invisible young men who had done that work, and she knew their story had never been told. Known Unto Us is her testimony to the witnesses who came before. Sara is currently pursuing graduate studies in archaeology and heritage studies. She lives in Utah with her husband.