Mary Roach grew up in a small house in Etna, New Hampshire. Roach graduated from Wesleyan in 1981 and moved San Francisco, where she spent a few years working as a freelance copy editor before landing a half-time PR job at the San Francisco Zoo. Roach's office was in a trailer next to Gorilla World. On the days when she wasn't taking calls about elephant wart removal surgery or denying rumors that the cheetahs had been sucked dry by fleas, she wrote freelance articles for the local newspaper's Sunday magazine. Eventually, her editors there moved on to bigger things and took Roach along with them.

Roach mostly write books these days but still writes the occasional magazine piece. These have run in Outside, National Geographic, New Scientist, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine, as well as many others. A 1995 article of hers called "How to Win at Germ Warfare" was a National Magazine Award Finalist, and in 1996, Roach's article on earthquake-proof bamboo houses took the Engineering Journalism Award in the general interest magazine category. Roach often writes about science and review books for The New York Times.

Her first book, "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers," was an offshoot of a column she had written for Salon.com. She is also the author of "Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife," "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex," "Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void," and her most recent release, "Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal."

Roach is also a TED speaker, and her TED Talk, "10 Things You Didn't Know About Orgasm," is listed as one of the most popular talks of all time with over 30 million views.

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