Franco Prati is an Associate Professor at Universita dell' Insubria, Como, Italy. He has worked in laser physics and nonlinear optics since 1987. His main contributions concern the study of temporal and spatio-temporal instabilities in nonlinear optical systems. He is co-author of more than 80 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and he is an Outstanding Referee of the American Physical Society and member of the Optical Society of America.