Head First Algebra

Authors of Algebra

Tracey Pilone would first like to thank her co-author and husband for being unwavering in his support and open enough to share the Head First world with her.

She is a freelance technical writer who supported mission planning and RF analysis software for the Navy, right before she decided to write a math book.

She spent several years before becoming a writer working as a construction manager on large commercial construction sites around Washington DC. That’s where she actually used Algebra on a somewhat regular basis and saw first hand that math is what makes buildings stay up.

She has a Civil Engineering degree from Virginia Tech, holds a Professional Engineer’s License, and received a Masters of Education from the University of Virginia.

Dan Pilone is a Software Architect for Vangent, Inc. and has led software development teams for the Naval Research Laboratory and NASA. He’s taught graduate and undergraduate Software Engineering at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

This is Dan’s second Head First Book, but it still comes with some firsts: his first book outside of Computer Science and his first book co-authored by his wife (who, incidentally, is much better looking than his last co-author. Sorry, Russ.) Working with Tracey on this book changed it from being work to being family fun time. Well, not entirely, but still an amazing experience.

Dan’s degree is in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. For anyone who needs inspiration that Algebra can be fun, fire up a good game of Halo and think about all the x’s, y’s, and z’s that make it all possible.