Govind Agrawal was born in Kashipur, a city located in the Himalayan foothills of India. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, in 1971 and 1974 respectively. After holding positions at the Ecole Polytechnique, France, the City University of New York, New York, and AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, Dr. Agrawal joined in 1989 the faculty of the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, where he is a Professor of Optics. He is an author or coauthor of more than 400 research papers and eight books in the areas of optics and photonics. Prof. Agrawal is a Fellow of both the Optical society of America and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is also a Life Fellow of the Optical Society of India.