Frantisek Svec received his degrees from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague (Czech Republic). In 1976 he joined the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and in 1992 joined the faculty at Cornell University. Since 1997, he is appointed at the University of California, Berkeley. He currently works as Facility Director in the Molecular Foundry of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Svec authored over 410 scientific publications, edited 2 books, and co-authored 75 patents. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Separation Science and member of editorial boards of a number of renowned journals. He is President of CASSS (formerly California Separation Science Society) since 2003. He is also known for his research in the area of porous polymers in different shapes such as beads, flat sheets, and, in particular, monoliths and their use in applications including liquid chromatography, electrochromatography, supports for solid phase chemistry, enzyme immobilization, and microfluidics. He received numerous awards for his pioneering work with monoliths.