Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan (born 26 May 1964) is an Irish-born American published paleontologist and author of science fiction and dark fantasy works, including 10 novels, series of comic books, and more than 250 published short stories, novellas, and vignettes. Kiernan is a two-time recipient of both the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards. Early life Kiernan was born in 1964 in Skerries, County Dublin, Ireland. After the death of their father, Kiernan moved to the United States as a young child with their mother Susan Ramey Cleveland and younger sister Mary Angela (Máire Aingeal). Much of their childhood was spent in the small town of Leeds, Alabama, and early interests included herpetology, paleontology, and fiction writing. As a teenager, Kiernan lived in Trussville, Alabama, and, in high school, began doing volunteer work at the Red Mountain Museum in Birmingham, Alabama and spending summers on their first archaeological and paleontological digs. Kiernan attended college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham-Southern College, and the University of Colorado at Boulder, studying geology and vertebrate paleontology, and held both museum and teaching positions before finally turning to fiction-writing in 1992. Career Paleontology In 1984, Kiernan co-founded the Birmingham Paleontological Society. In 1988, they co-authored a paper describing the new genus and species of mosasaur, Selmasaurus russelli. More recent papers include one on the biostratigraphy of Alabama mosasaurs, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2002) and "First record of a velociraptorine theropod (Tetanurae, Dromaeosauridae) from the Eastern Gulf Coastal United States" (2004). As of 2019, Kiernan is a research associate and fossil preparator at McWane Science Center in Birmingham, Alabama, again studying mosasaurs, as well as Cretaceous turtles. In 2020, they coauthored on a paper describing a new large fossil sea turtle, Asmodochelys parhami, from the Demopolis Chalk of Alabama. In 2021, Kiernan also joined the staff of the University of Alabama Museum, Department of Research and Collections, as a Research Associate in Vertebrate Paleontology. In 2022, they coauthored the description of a new giant freshwater turtle from the Late Cretaceous Mooreville Chalk of Alabama, Appalachemys ebersolei, a previously unknown macrobaenid with a shell more than 80 cm.in length. Kiernan has been a member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology since 1984 and is a member of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. At various times, they have been a member of the Alabama Academy of Science, the Paleontological Society, Sigma