Fred Vargas is the pseudonym of French historian, archaeologist and writer Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau, born in 1957 in Paris.

Career as archaeologist

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She worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which she joined in 1988. She later joined the Institut Pasteur, as a eukaryotic archaeologist.
She has undertaken a project on the epidemiology of the Black Death and Bubonic plague, the result of which was a work considered definitive in the research area — Les chemins de la peste (2003).

Career as novelist

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Fred is the diminutive of her given name, Frédérique, while Vargas derives from the Ava Gardner character in The Barefoot Contessa and is the pseudonym adopted by her twin sister, Joëll...