About
Robert Placido
Heroic fantasy, LitRPG, and science-fantasy, written character first.
Robert Placido writes at the intersection of heroism, humanity, and high stakes. The themes he keeps coming back to are found family, moral courage, and resilience — what holds people together when everything around them is coming apart. The worlds are invented. The pressure on the people in them is not.
He lives in Denton, Texas, and holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of North Texas. Off the page, the pleasure is DIY, family, and wondering what if.
The day job is higher education, and has been for more than twenty-five years. He is Chief Information Officer of the University of Maine System, a remote role he has held since May 2024, overseeing information systems and technology for the system and its seven public universities. Before that he was Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs at the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, and earlier Vice Chancellor and then Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs for the University of Maine System. He spent twenty years at Texas Woman’s University as Associate Provost for Technology and Chief Information Officer. His own account of that work is practical: technology in service of students, academic quality, and the people who teach. He is an early adopter of AI, and wroteApathy by Design: Sparking Deep Learning with AIout of it.