Alessandro Vespignani obtained his PhD at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza'. After holding research positions at Yale and Leiden University, he joined the condensed matter research group at the International Center for Theoretical Physics (UNESCO) in Trieste. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers on the statistical physics of non-equilibrium phenomena, critical phase transitions and complex and disordered systems. At present he is senior research scientist of the CNRS, at the Universite de Paris-Sud, France.