A Perl programmer by trade, Allison is on the board of directors of The Perl Foundation, a core committer for Parrot, designer and lead developer of Parrot's Tree Grammar Engine (TGE), co-author of "Perl 6 & Parrot Essentials" with Dan Sugalski and Leopold Tötsch, and founder and president of Onyx Neon Press. She also works for for O'Reilly Media, helping to plan the program for their Open Source Conventions and editing Perl books.