Professor Robert G (Bob) Gilbert is Director of the Key Centre for Polymer Colloids at the University of Sydney. He was born in Sydney on Jan 21 1946. He received his undergraduate training at Sydney University, graduating in 1966, and his PhD from the Australian National University, Canberra, graduating in 1970. He carried out postdoctoral work at MIT in the US from 1970 to 1972, and then returned to the University of Sydney. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and holds a Personal Chair in Polymer Chemistry at the University of Sydney. He is author of about 310 papers, four patents, and two books (on unimolecular reactions and on emulsion polymerization). His research achievements include developing new theoretical and experimental methods for mechanistic investigation in polymerization kinetics, particularly in free radical systems, with emphasis on emulsion polymerizations. He also has carried out extensive research on fundamental dynamical theories in gas-phase reactions. He was President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Macromolecular Division (1998-2001), Elected Member of the IUPAC Bureau (2002-2005), was Chair (1988-1995) of the IUPAC Working Party on polymerization modelling and mechanisms, and was one of eight members of the IUPAC Strategy Development and Implementation Committee. He was Secretary of the International Polymer Colloids Group until 2001, and former Chair of both the Polymer and Physical Chemistry Divisions of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. He is a winner of a Sydney University Excellence in Teaching Award, was awarded the Smith Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in 1992 in recognition of outstanding research achievements in chemistry over the past decade, the Institute's Polymer Medal in 1995, shared the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering Medal in 1993 for his work in understanding polymerization mechanisms, the RACI Ollé Prize in 1996 for his book on emulsion polymerization, the RACI Physical Chemistry Medal in 1998 and the RACI Applied Research Medal in 2005. He is a member of the editorial boards of Biomacromolecules, Journal of Polymer Science and Polymer, and was Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Polymer Colloids, 2003. He is fluent in French and German as well as his native English. Provided by Professor R. G. Gilbert