About the Author

Dr. Bryson Payne is a tenured professor of computer science at the University of North Georgia, where he has taught aspiring coders since 1998. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), among other industry certifications. He was also the first Department Head of Computer Science at UNG and the founding Director of the Center for Cyber Operations Education, an NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense. He enjoys working with K–12 schools worldwide to promote computer science education.

Featured in CIO magazine, Campus Technology, and the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Payne is also the best-selling author of Teach Your Kids to Code: A Parent-Friendly Guide to Python Programming (No Starch Press, 2015), now published in five languages (Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and English). He’s also a popular online instructor of several courses, including the highly rated Udemy course Real-World Ethical Hacking (2017). His courses reach more than 20,000 enrolled students from more than 150 countries. He holds a PhD in computer science from Georgia State University and has published articles in scholarly and trade journals, in addition to speaking regularly at regional and national conferences on computer science and cybersecurity education.

Dr. Payne lives north of Atlanta, Georgia, with his lovely wife, Bev; two sons, Alex and Max; and three cats, Leo, Rocky, and Pixel.