Julie DeWees Sparks is a Houston-based author and Texas historian. Her debut book, Under Texas Skies: Oil, Ranches & Dreams That Shaped a State, chronicles the people, land, and industry that transformed a state — and the world.

A graduate of LSU (B.S., International Finance) and the University of Houston (MBA, Economics), Julie spent decades in the energy industry — including Getty Oil, Columbia Gas, Enron, TransCanada, and BP — before retiring in 2016. That career gave her a firsthand understanding of the forces still shaping Texas today.

Since 2018, she has devoted her time to preserving and sharing Texas history, serving on the Advisory Board of The Texas Center at Schreiner University and as a docent at the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens in Houston. She previously served as a board member of the Texas Historical Foundation from 2018 to 2021.