Mary Roach

The common theme throughout most of Roach's books is a literary treatment of the human body. Roach says of her publication history, "My books are all [about the human body], Spook is a little bit of departure because it's more about the soul rather than the flesh and blood body, but most of my books are about human bodies in unusual circumstances." When asked by Peter Sagal of NPR, how she picks her topics, she replied, "Well, it's got to have a little science, it's got to have a little history, a little humor—and something gross." For example, her article entitled "The C word: Dead man driving" was published in the Journal of Clinical Anatomy, and asks why cadavers are considered to be dishonored if they are being used to test explosives or crash testing.

Her book Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal (Oneworld) was on the shortlist for the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.

In 2012, Roach was the recipient of the Harvard Secular Society's Rushdie Award for her outstanding lifetime achievement in cultural humanism. The same year, she received a Special Citation in scientific inquiry from Maximum Fun.

Besides being a best-selling author, Roach is involved in other projects. Roach reviews books for The New York Times, and was the guest editor of the Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 edition. She also serves as a member of the Mars Institute's Advisory Board, as an ambassador for Mars One and was recently asked to join the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary.

In 2011, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, was chosen as the book of the year for the seventh annual "One City One Book: San Francisco Reads" literary event program. Packing for Mars was also sixth on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Roach's column "My Planet" (Reader's Digest) was runner-up in the humor category of the 2005 National Press Club awards. Roach's second book, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, was the recipient of the Elle Reader's Prize in October 2005. Spook was also listed as a New York Times Notable Books pick in 2005, as well as a New York Times Bestseller. In 2008, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, was chosen as the New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, it was in The Boston Globe Top 5 Science Books, and it was listed as a bestseller in several other publications.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was a New York Times Bestseller, a 2003 Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" pick, and one of Entertainment Weekly's "Best Books of 2003." Stiff also won the Amazon.com Editor's Choice award in 2003, was voted as a Borders Original Voices book, and was the winner of the Elle Reader's Prize. The book has been translated into at least 17 languages, including Hungarian (Hullamerev) and Lithuanian (Negyvėliai). Stiff was also selected for the Washington State University Common Reading Program in 2008–2009.

In 1997 she visited Antarctica to write an article for Discover Magazine on meteorite hunting with meteorite hunter Ralph Harvey. She has also been there a few times as part of the National Science Foundation's Polar Program, which manages the funding for research and operations support in the Arctic and the Antarctic. On one of these trips, Roach accompanied a team of marine sediment experts on the research vessel, Nathaniel B. Palmer, in order to collect core samples from the depths of the ocean off Antarctica in order to learn more about global warming.

From 1996 to 2005, Roach was part of "the Grotto," a San Francisco-based project and community of working writers and filmmakers. It was in this community that Roach got the push she needed to break into book writing. While being interviewed by Alex C. Telander of BookBanter, Roach answered the question of how she got started on her first book:

In 1996, her article on earthquake-proof bamboo houses, "The Bamboo Solution", took the American Engineering Societies Engineering Journalism Award in the general interest magazine category. In her article, civil engineer Jules Janssen remarked that bamboo is "stronger than wood, brick, and concrete ... A short, straight column of bamboo with a top surface area of 10 square centimeters could support an 11,000-pound elephant."

In 1995, Roach's article "How to Win at Germ Warfare" was a National Magazine Award finalist. In the article, Roach conducted an interview with microbiologist Chuck Gerba of the University of Arizona who described a scientific study in which bacteria and virus particles become aerosolized upon flushing a toilet: "Upon flushing, as many as 28,000 virus particles and 660,000 bacteria [are] jettisoned from the bowl."

In 1986, she sold a humor piece about the IRS to the San Francisco Chronicle. That piece led to a number of humorous, first-person essays and feature articles for such publications as Vogue, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, Discover Magazine, National Geographic, Outside Magazine, and Wired. She has also written articles for Salon.com and tech-gadget reviews for Inc.com.

She received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Wesleyan University in 1981.

Mary Roach (born March 20, 1959), is an American author, specializing in popular science and humor. As of 2016, she has published seven books: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003), Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005) (published in some markets as Six Feet Over: Adventures in the Afterlife), Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (2010), My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal (2013), and Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (2016).