Robert Bryant, Director, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), received his PhD in mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is currently a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His research interests center on the geometry of differential equations and their applications to Riemannian geometry and mathematical physics. He is a Vice President of the American Mathematical Society, the Chair of the Northern California, Nevada, and Hawaii Section of the Mathematical Association of America, and served a term as the director of the Park City/IAS Mathematics Institute. In 2002, he was appointed by President Bush to serve on the Board of Directors of the Vietnam Education Foundation and he currently serves on the International Committee for the National Mathematics Center of Nigeria. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.