Sarah Parcak is from Bangor, Maine. She holds degrees from Yale (BA) and Cambridge University (M.Phil and PhD), is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (an elected position), a National Geographic Fellow, and a 2014 TED Senior Fellow. Sarah serves as the founding director of the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology. She is also the CEO of SpectralGlobe technologies (SpectralGlobe.com), a company which specializes in using remote sensing technologies to provide innovative landscape solutions. She is the winner of the 2016 TED Prize and president of GlobalXplorer°.

Sarah and her longtime sweetheart, Egyptologist Greg Mumford, work together on the Surveys and Excavation Projects in Egypt, which includes archaeological projects in the Delta, Sinai, and pyramid fields regions of Egypt. Sarah has written the first textbook on the field of satellite archaeology, called Satellite Remote Sensing for Archaeology, and has published numerous peer reviewed scientific papers. She is regularly invited to give papers at national and international conferences and symposia. She is also interviewed regularly for national media (Science, Nature, National Geographic, CNN, BBC). Her research has been featured in a major international BBC-Discovery Chanel Documentary, Egypt: What Lies Beneath,”, a BBC show “Rome’s Lost Empire”, and a BBC-PBS NOVA special “Vikings Unearthed.” Sarah has worked with NASA, the U.S. State Dept., and has collaborators across the globe. She has given 150 talks to a range of audiences across the globe.