Tara Haelle is an author and science journalist who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. She loves traveling and has backpacked, hiked, train-hopped, sky-dived, spelunked, scuba-dived and motorbiked through dozens of countries while eating strange insects, trekking to ancient ruins, and swimming with sharks. She lives in Texas with her husband and two sons, four dogs, and 15 pet rats, give or take.