Eric Reiss

[4][5] Born in San Antonio, Texas in 1954, his family relocated to St. Louis prior to his first birthday when his father accepted a position at Washington University School of Medicine.

Reiss is the son of two prominent physicians who played pivotal roles in bringing about the nuclear test-ban treaty of 1963 (see Linus Pauling "Activism").

His mother, Louise Zibold Reiss, M.D., as Director of the Baby Tooth Survey, was involved in mapping levels of radioactive Strontium-90 in the U.S. food chain secondary to nuclear fallout.

He was originally apprenticed in the fall of 1976 to Danish director Sam Besekow, where he assisted with the production of Eduardo De Filippo's play Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

With the advent of PC-based multimedia in the late 80s and the World Wide Web a few years later, Reiss combined his knowledge of theater, communication, and computers to build interactive business tools.

The resulting microsite, Rick's Café, was an interactive precursor to a blog and was subsequently voted Macromedia Site of the Week.

[11][12] Reiss is still active as a performer and musician, working regularly with Vivienne McKee's London Toast Theatre in Copenhagen.

Other acting credits include the Danish film, Miraklet i Valby (1989) and off-screen dubbing for Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (2000).

The award was rescinded 11 hours after the announcement, and resulted in a public letter of condemnation as well as a lawsuit against the organization (Cause 236-358943-24, Chelsey Glasson v. User Experience Professionals Association, Tarrant County District Court).