Richard G. Weiss received an ScB degree from Brown University and MS and PhD degrees from the University of Connecticut under the mentorship of Eugene I. Snyder. He was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow with George S. Hammond at California Institute of Technology for 2 years and a Visiting Assistant Professor and National Academy of Sciences Overseas Fellow at the Instituto de Quimica of the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil for 3 years. He has been a member of the faculty of Georgetown University since 1974 and currently holds the rank of Professor.  He is also a member of the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology at Georgetown. He has been a visiting professor at universities and institutes in Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Slovakia, and Spain.  He is a Fellow of IUPAC and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and received a doctorate honoris causa from Université de Bordeaux 1.  He was a senior editor of the ACS journal Langmuir for 10 years, is currently a member of the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society and Gels, and is an Associate Editor for Polimeros and a member of the Scientific Committee of Substantia. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and more than 25 book chapters. His research interests include investigations of photochemical, photophysical and thermal reactions of molecules in anisotropic environments, and the development and application of ionic liquids, ionic liquid crystals, and new molecular and polymer gels for various purposes, including chemical spill remediation and the conservation of objects of cultural heritage.