Judith Astria Merkle was born on January 14, 1942 in Brunswick, Maine and grew up in Livermore, California, U.S.A. Her great-grandfather was a Swiss emigrant, who moved to the United States in 1860. Her uncle-abue was the famous player of baseball Fred Merkle. Her father, Theodore Charles Merkle was contralador of the Project Pluto and her brother Ralph C. Merkle is technological professor in a Computer science School.

Judith Astria Merkle holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and teaches in the Department of Government at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Married with Mr. Riley, she wrote as Judith Merkle Riley six historical and romance novels.