D. Roland Hess works in machine learning at Google, and has written about art and software for Focal Press, John Wiley & Sons, and Taylor & Francis, winning an American Publishers Association PROSE Award in 2011 for his book on character animation. He honed his craft in the Creative Writing program at UPenn, but gave up the potential glory of starving-artistdom for a career in production art and software development.
His hobbies include construction (carpentry, electrical work, sweating copper), weaponry, tending bar, cars that Go, writing software, playing piano and guitar, and occasional forays into art. He lives in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, the glorious Gateway to the Midwest.