Dr. Julio M. Ottino is the dean of the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Northwestern University where he holds the titles of Distinguished Robert R. McCormick Institute Professor and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Ottino’s current research is focused on complex systems and has been featured in articles and on the covers of Nature, Science, Scientific American, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. Ottino is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of the Fluid Dynamics Prize from the American Physical Society, where he is also a Fellow. In 2008 he was selected by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers as one of the “One Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era.”