Biography
Avi Perry was born in Israel. As a teenager and throughout his college years, he was a professional musician. He financed his student life with numerous gigs, playing with his Israeli band, writing songs, playing the various keyboard instruments, and enjoying listening to his performances on the Israeli radio (there was no MTV in late 60s Israel). He still plays and writes music, but as a hobby (at home), rather than as a line of work. During the Six-Day-War in 1967, he served in the Israeli military, in the field intelligence unit, and gained valuable and relevant experience in covert communications technology and a variety of spy craft and methods.
He spent the past four decades in the US, first as a Ph.D. student, then as a professor at Northwestern University, a Bell Laboratories - distinguished staff member and manager, as well as a delegate of the US and Lucent Technologies to the ITU—the UN International Standards body in Geneva. Lastly, he was Vice President at NMS Communications, in charge of voice quality technologies.
He signed for early retirement in 2004 with the intention of writing a technical book. The title Fundamentals of Voice Quality Engineering in Wireless Networks was published by Cambridge University Press in 2007 and became very popular. Readers praised the book for its thoroughness and for Perry's refreshing, unique and entertaining writing style, atypical among technical writers. Throughout Avi's tenure at NMS, he wrote many short (humor-packed, peppered with company culture) satires, technical reports, white papers (published on company website), press releases, and more. He also contributed to the Jerusalem Post newspaper. Feedback to his columns were emotional, either supportive or disagreeable.
Avi’s latest novel—72 Virgins is about Jihad terrorism and the security agencies' struggle to thwart its stratagem and trounce the perpetrators. The story is built on life experiences that combine technology know-how, familiarity with spy craft and human intelligence (HUMINT), understanding of Middle Eastern cultures and history, a great sense of humor, and a talent for writing--all breathe authenticity into the setting.