Sara Porterfield, PhD, is a historian, river guide, educator, author, and founder of Tributaries Consulting whose work focuses on the Colorado River Basin and water in the American West.

Sara’s love of the Colorado River began during childhood on family road trips across the West. After college, her interest in the river led her to working for the Colorado Outward Bound School where she has guided trips on the rivers of the Colorado Basin since 2005. Not content with just floating the river, Sara began her doctoral studies in order to understand the natural and human history of the Colorado and water in the West.

After graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder with a PhD in History, Sara founded Tributaries Consulting in 2018 in order to bring historical perspectives to the Western water community through research, writing, education, and public outreach.

Her award-winning writing has been published on:

• Real Clear Politics

• Erstwhile: A History Blog

• The Dirtbag Diaries podcast

• COLUMBIA: The Magazine of Northwest History

• Annals of Wyoming

• H-Net Reviews: H-Environment.

Sara, her husband Jeff, and their pups make their home in Boulder, Colorado. When not writing about or researching the rivers of the West she enjoys running rivers, drinking coffee, trail running, eating chocolate, and doing yoga.