Andrei Ruckenstein is a theoretical physicist, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from Harvard University, and a PhD in theoretical Condensed Matter Physics from Cornell University. In 2007, after an academic career as member of the theoretical physics group at AT&T Bell Laboratories, and as faculty of the University of California at San Diego, and Rutgers University, he joined Boston University as Founding Vice President and Associate Provost for Research, managing the $400 Million research portfolio of the University’s main and Medical School campuses. Currently, he chairs BU’s Physics Department and has re-engaged in academic research, at the interface between Physics and Computer Science. Andrei has a long-standing relationship with the Aspen Institute and served as President of the Aspen Center for Physics, a prestigious Theoretical Physics think-tank, and a sister institution to the Aspen Institute. Also, he has experience in driving and overseeing large regional and national research projects and initiatives: among others, he was the founding President of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, Inc., responsible for delivering one of the largest academic computing facilities in the US, built through a collaboration between Boston University, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, UMass, and the State of Massachusetts, with industry partners Cisco and EMC. In July 2020 he stepped down from chairing the Board of the US National Laboratory on the International Space Station, an entity designated by the US Congress to promote American interests in Research & Development on the International Space Station. He is the recipient of a Sloan Fellowship, an ONR Young Investigator Award, and a Senior Humboldt Prize, and he is an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.