I am an early career historian with an interest in material culture, extreme environments, bodily and psychological comfort, and colonialism in the long nineteenth-century Anglophone world. I earned my BA in Anthropology with a minor in Art History at the University of Chicago, and an MA in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center at Bard College. In 2023 I received my PhD from the Program in History of Science and Medicine at Yale University. My dissertation, which I am currently developing into a book manuscript, was entitled “The Right Stuff: Material Culture, Comfort, and the Making of Explorers, 1820-1940,” and was awarded the Hans Gatzke Prize by the Yale Department of History. It examined the development and use of mundane objects carried by British and American explorers on expeditions of scientific inquiry and colonial conquest, including waterproof clothing, chocolate, first aid kits, and tents, as well as how explorers appeared in advertisements for these products for home consumers. I am currently developing a second project around the use of “extreme-sourced” ingredients in skincare and cosmetics, from Alpine flowers to Antarctic glacier water to deep sea mud and microbes, as well as researching the role of mountaineers and polar explorers in developing early commercial sun protection products. My writing has appeared in journals and magazines such as Isis, Alpinist, and Material Intelligence, and I have a number of forthcoming chapters in edited volumes, on topics ranging from the outfitting of early Everest expeditions to decarbonizing academic conferences and research. I can be found online at www.sarahmpickman.com and on X/Twitter at https://x.com/sarahmpicks