Alex Martelli is a member of the Python Software Foundation and works as
Uber Tech Lead for Google, Inc., in Mountain View, CA. He is the author
of "Python in a Nutshell", co-editor of the "Python Cookbook", and other
(mostly Python-related) materials, many of which are available from his
home page at http://www.aleax.it/ .

Alex won the 2002 Activators' Choice Award, and the 2006 Frank Willison
award for outstanding contributions to the Python community.

Before joining Google, Alex spent a year designing chips with Texas
Instruments; 8 years with IBM Research, gradually shifting from hardware
to software, and winning three Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards;
12 as Senior Software Consultant at think3 inc, developing libraries,
network protocols, GUI engines, event frameworks, and web access
frontends; and 3 more as a freelance consultant, working mostly for AB
Strakt, a Python-centered software house in Göteborg, Sweden.

Alex has also taught courses on programming, development methods,
object-oriented design, and numerical computing, at Ferrara University
and other venues.  Alex's proudest achievement is the articles that
appeared in Bridge World (January/February 2000), which were hailed as
giant steps towards solving issues that had haunted contract-bridge
theoreticians for decades.