About Us

Janet Furlow is the Chief Operations Officer (COO) at the Pragmatic Bookshelf. She oversees and coordinates everything from book production, manufacturing and fulfillment, to customer service and support from her home base in sunny Texas.

Susannah Davidson is our Executive Editor. She’s been an editor and manager in technical, scientific, and academic publishing for 30 years, and is an expert in all aspects of publishing, from managing an editorial team, to writing, development editing, and copy editing. She’s passionate about the power of words to inspire, communicate, and teach, and works from her home base in California.

Margaret Eldridge is the Managing Editor of our publication on Medium, she’s in charge of Author Relations at the Pragmatic Bookshelf, and she has been editing and writing professionally about technology since 1996. She also runs a document services and PDF form design company called Electronic Document Design. When she’s not working, Margaret is usually out sailing and enjoying the Florida sunshine.

Dave Thomas is internationally recognized as a leading voice in the software development community. Along with Andy Hunt he wrote The Pragmatic Programmer in 1999 (and updated it for its current 20th Anniversary Edition). He was one of the authors of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Dave and Andy founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf in 2003, and now runs it after Andy’s retirement in 2023. Dave is always interested in getting feedback and ideas for things we could do better.

Dave Rankin, formerly the acting CEO and Publisher for the Pragmatic Bookshelf, now serves as its Publisher Emeritus. With over 25 years of experience in tech and publishing and deep first-hand knowledge of the Bookshelf’s innermost workings, Dave provides strategic advice and guidance on areas of growth. Dave is passionate about cooperative efforts and the power of partnerships.

Jackie Carter is a development editor for the Pragmatic Bookshelf. Previously she was an independent software consultant, working with both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. She lives on the northern California coast.

Tammy Coron is a development editor at the Pragmatic Bookshelf. She’s also an author, illustrator, animator, and indie game developer. With over 30 years of experience in the creative-tech space, Tammy is an innovative problem solver and industry leader working on various projects from content creation— including books, tutorials, videos, and podcasts—to the design and development of cross-platform applications and games.

Brian Hogan is an author, a development editor at the Pragmatic Bookshelf, a web developer, and a teacher from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He’s been developing web sites professionally since 1995, building web applications using HTML, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, and PHP. He enjoys teaching and writing about technology, particularly web development and accessibility. When not hacking on code, he’s writing music, watching “The Simpsons,” or spending quality time with his wife and daughters. Follow him on Twitter at @bphogan.

Michael Swaine, Pragmatic Stories Series Editor and developmental editor for the Pragmatic Bookshelf, has been writing about technology full-time since he helped launch InfoWorld back in 1981. He and Paul Freiberger wrote Fire in the Valley, the seminal history of the personal computer and the source for the award-winning movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, and co-wrote the article on computer history for Encyclopedia Britannica. He was editor-in-chief/-at-large for Dr. Dobb’s Journal forlikeever, and launched several magazines plus four regular columns in MacUser magazine and columns in a dozen other magazines. He and partner Nancy Groth live in Grants Pass, Oregon.

Katie Dvorak has many years of development editing and publishing experience, including stints at IDG Books, PC World Magazine, and the American Medical Association, and projects with O’Reilly, Wiley, and Microsoft Press. She lives in Northern California with her family, where she is often seen running with her dog in preparation for her next marathon.

Bruce Tate, Series Editor of our Nerves series, is a father, mountain biker, and climber from Austin, Texas. He is the founder of grox.io, an Elixir training company with one of most extensive libraries for Elixir videos and learning material. His books have included the critically acclaimed Better, Faster, Lighter Java, Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, Designing Elixir Systems with OTP, and Programming Phoenix LiveView. He is one of the earliest adopters of Elixir, and has been constantly involved in the adoption of the language.

Adaobi Obi Tulton got her first job as a manuscript coordinator in 1997 and has been in publishing ever since. She has been a project editor and development editor for companies such as Wiley, O’Reilly, and Apress, and has done copy editing and proofreading work for companies such as Hachette Book Group and McGraw-Hill. She’s a New Yorker, born and raised, and lives there now with her husband, daughter, and cat. She’s still trying to find free time to learn how to knit.

Vanya Wryter is a development editor and copyeditor for the Pragmatic Bookshelf. She is also a writer and instructional designer with a background in education and marketing. She has written and edited books and articles on a variety of topics including education, job skills, and skills training. When she has time, she looks for adventure in urban fantasy books.

Miki Tebeka, Puzzle Editor on our Brain Teasers series, has a passion for teaching and mentoring. He teaches many workshops on various technical subjects all over the world and also mentored many young developers on their way to success. Miki is involved in open source, has several projects of his own, and has contributed to several more—including the Python and Go projects. He has been writing software for more than 25 years.

Sophie DeBenedetto, Series Editor of our Your Elixir Source and 7 in 7 series, is a Senior Engineer at GitHub and co-author of Programming Phoenix LiveView. She is a graduate of, and former teacher at, The Flatiron School and has a passion for coding education. Historically she is a cat person but will admit to owning a dog.

Kelly Talbot has enjoyed helping authors effectively reach their audiences for more than 20 years. During this time, he has been a content developer, project manager, and copy editor for Wiley, Macmillan, Pearson Education, Oxford, Cengage, and other publishers. Kelly’s writing has appeared in dozens of magazines. He divides his time between Indianapolis, Indiana, and Timisoara, Romania.

Don Hagist has worked for three decades in software testing and quality assurance on military and commercial projects, focusing on the end-user experience with products that integrate hardware and software. In addition, he is managing editor of the Journal of the American Revolution, and has written several non-fiction books on the American Revolution.

Nicole Taché is an experienced publishing professional specializing in developmental and substantive editing of nonfiction, educational, and technical content. She supports her authors in various ways throughout their authoring journey — from high-level structural assessment of content to sentence-level language editing and project management. Her goal, and promise, is to work collaboratively with authors to publish clear, clean, and impactful content that speaks to the needs of the intended audience. In addition to The Pragmatic Bookshelf, Nicole’s clients include Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review Insights, F.A. Davis, W.W. Norton, O’Reilly Media, DeepLearning.ai, and self-publishing authors.

VM (Vicky) Brasseur, Open Source Series Editor for the Pragmatic Bookshelf, is an award-winning free/open source advocate and corporate strategist, international keynote speaker, and writer. She’s the author of Forge Your Future with Open Source, the only book detailing how to contribute to free/open source (FOSS) projects. Aside from articles in various publications, she also writes about FOSS, business, and their intersection on her blog.

Jeff Langr has enjoyed over a third century in software development. Jeff is the author of five software development books, including three published by the Pragmatic Bookshelf and a rewrite of the Andy Hunt/Dave Thomas classic, Pragmatic Unit Testing in Java with JUnit. He also wrote two chapters for Uncle Bob Martin’s highly acclaimed bestseller, Clean Code. Through his company, Langr Software Solutions, Inc., Jeff provides technical/process training, hands-on coaching for development teams, and programming services.

Oliver Lindberg, Web Development Series Expert for The Pragmatic Bookshelf, is an independent editor, content consultant, and founder of the Pixel Pioneers events series. Formerly the editor of net magazine, he has been involved with the web design and development industry for more than 15 years and helps businesses across the world create content that connects with their customers. Follow him on Twitter at @oliverlindberg.

Noel Rappin, Ruby/Rails Series Editor, is a Staff Software Engineer at Chime Financial and has more than 20 years of experience as a professional software developer. He is the author of multiple technical books including Programming Ruby, Rails 5 Test Prescriptions, and Modern Front End Development With Rails. Noel was the host of the Tech Done Right Podcast. Follow Noel on Twitter @noelrap and online at noelrappin.com.

Frazer Rice, Tech in Finance Series Expert, focuses on fin- and legaltech. Based in New York, Frazer is a lawyer and the Regional Director for Pendleton Square Trust Company. He is the author of Wealth Actually, which focuses on intelligent decision-making around wealth. Frazer also produces and hosts the “Wealth Actually” podcast, which centers on issues affecting the wealth management industry. Frazer is interested in the impact of artificial intelligence, data science, and programming on the legal and financial services industries. An avid golfer and comic book/horror fan, you can find Frazer at frazerrice.com and on twitter @frazerrice.

Mike Riley, Pragmatic Bookshelf’s Hardware and IoT Series Expert, is a professional software developer, DevOps engineer and emerging information technologist, and the author of several Pragmatic Bookshelf titles including Portable Python Projects and Programming Your Home. Mike is also a contributing editor and author of hundreds of technical articles and reviews for Dr. Dobb’s, DevProConnections, iPhone Life and Make Magazine, and was the co-host of Computer Connection, a technology enthusiast show broadcast on CLTV. Mike is also a contributing author to the Open eBook Publication Structure Specification, one of the three standards that comprise the EPUB digital publication file format.

Maik Schmidt has worked as a software developer for more than 20 years and makes a living creating complex solutions for large enterprises. Outside his day job, he writes book reviews and articles for computer science magazines. He is the author of Arduino: A Quick-Start Guide, Second Edition and Raspberry Pi: A Quick-Start Guide, Second Edition.

Simon St. Laurent is a content manager at LinkedIn Learning, focusing primarily on front-end web projects. He has been co-chair of the Fluent conference and of OSCON. He has authored or co-authored books including Introducing Elixir, Introducing Erlang, Learning Rails 3, XML: A Primer, and Cookies. You can find more of his writing on technology, Quakerism, and the Town of Dryden at simonstl.com.

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is an award-winning author, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., and an instructional professor at the University of Houston. He has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a regularly invited speaker at several international conferences. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects. Venkat is a (co)author of multiple books, including the 2007 Jolt Productivity award-winning book Practices of an Agile Developer.

Herbert Wolverson, Rust Series Expert for The Pragmatic Bookshelf, is an independent consultant, providing custom software development and architecture advice. He is the author of Hands-on Rust, the “Rust Roguelike Tutorial,” numerous blog posts, and articles on Medium.com. Herbert is active in the Rust community and maintains several open source projects ranging from games to radio propagation analysis.

Frances Buontempo, has been programming professionally since the 1990s, largely in finance. She is on Bradford University’s Industrial Advisory Board and edits ACCU’s Overload magazine. She has written two books, Genetic Algorithms and Machine Learning for Programmers: Create AI Models and Evolve Solutions, and Learn C++ by Example. You can find many of her conference talks, on topics like how to implement machine learning algorithms, on YouTube.

Alan McCann, is a serial entrepreneur working for the last 20 years leading the technology teams as CTO for machine learning and fintech startups. Having to stay on the bleeding edge, Alan is a voluminous consumer of technology training materials and has been a Pragmatic Bookshelf customer since the first edition of Agile Web Development with Rails.

Chris Keele, has spent the last 15 years helping early-stage startups scale beyond their initial growing pains as a developer, team lead, and manager. He is a long-time contributor, tinkerer, and volunteer in the Elixir community. He spends most of his free time on porches across the American South, breaking his jerry-rigged smarthome system, and looking for his escapee cats due to the aforementioned porch and smarthome situation.