Sylvia Carol Branzei-Velasquez is the author of Grossology, Animal Grossology, Grossology Begins at Home and Hands On Grossology. She is the originator of grossology, or the idea of teaching science through gross things. Grossology has also become a museum exhibit, a calendar, a CD rom, and soon a television show. Virtual Grossology was also released, which is the original book with sounds and smells.

Sylvia is a 41 year old, former science teacher living in Northern California with her husband, three dogs and two cats. She is a board member for the Leggett Unified School District, a columnist for a local paper, and a writer. Performing gross stuff at museums, universities, and school often takes her out of the woods and into various cities and towns.

Before devoting her life to grossness, Sylvia was a science teacher at a remote school in Mendocino County, California. She taught science to the entire school from kindergarten through high school. Considering the entire school only had about 60 students, it wasnt very hard. Whale Gulch School is probably the only school in the world where every student knows how to make fake snot, fake blood, and fake wounds. Beside Whale Gulch School, Sylvia taught science in various junior high and high schools throughout the years.

Previous to teaching at Whale Gulch School, Sylvia was a freelance editor and writer for the Secondary Science division of Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. She wrote many enrichment features and full page activities for Insights, the middle school science series, and Biology, the high school science text. She also wrote all of the enrichment features for Environmental Science.

In addition to writing and editing at Addison-Wesley, Sylvia Carol worked as a curriculum designer and teacher trainer for Project Create, an elementary school environmental education project based in Oakland, CA. Finally, Sylvia Carol taught after school enrichment courses at Edison Elementary School