Didier Sornette is Professor of Geophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a research director at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France. A specialist in the scientific prediction of catastrophes in a wide range of complex systems, he is the author of the textbook "Critical Phenomena in Natural Sciences" (Springer-Verlag) and has authored or coauthored more than 300 papers in international journals.