Author Bio
• Birth—October 17, 1984
• Where—Easton, Pennsylvania, USA
• Raised—near Richmond, Virginia
• Education—B.S., Christopher Newport University
• Currently—lives in Somerville, Massachusetts
Randall Patrick Munroe is an American webcomic author/artist and former NASA roboticist. He is the creator of the webcomic xkcd, which after leaving NASA, he has devoted himself to full time. His book, What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions was published in 2014.
Munroe was a fan of the funny pages from an early age, starting off with Calvin and Hobbes. After attending the Chesterfield County Mathematics and Science High School at Clover Hill, he graduated from Christopher Newport University in 2006 with a degree in physics.
Before and after graduation, Munroe worked as an independent contracting roboticist for NASA at the Langley Research Center. In October, 2006, when his contract with NASA was not renewed, he began to write xkcd full-time. He now supports himself by the sale of xkcd related merchandise. The webcomic quickly became very popular, garnering up to 70 million hits a month by October 2007.
According to Munroe, xkcd is unpronounceable. Here are his own words:
It's not actually an acronym. It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation—a treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings.
He has also toured the lecture circuit, giving speeches, including a TED Talk at Google's Googleplex in Mountain View, California.
Munroe lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. In June, 2011, he announced that his fiancee had been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. The couple were married that September.
In September 2013, Munroe announced that a group of xkcd readers had submitted his name as a candidate for the renaming of asteroid (4942) 1987 DU6 to 4942 Munroe which was accepted by the International Astronomical Union. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/10/2014.)
Visit the author's book page.