Tristan Needham (son of the distinguished social anthropologist Rodney Needham) grew up in Oxford, England. He studied physics at Merton College, Oxford, before moving to the Mathematical Institute, where he enjoyed the great privilege of studying black holes under the supervision of Sir Roger Penrose. Tristan received his DPhil in 1987 and joined the faculty of the University of San Francisco in 1989. His continuing mission is to seek out new intuitive forms of understanding, and new visualizations.