HM Waugh is an environmental scientist, writer, and educator with a long-term love of wild places and high mountains. This has led to icy feet and sunburnt cheeks in magical countries like New Zealand, Nepal, Bolivia and Switzerland. She has studied dolphins in New Zealand and rare plants in the Wheatbelt, and worked in mining and construction projects across Western Australia. She currently works with both children and animals (concurrently) at Perth Zoo, and loves being able to truthfully say she handles dragons for a job.