Mohan Srinivasarao was born in India in 1959. He received his B.Sc. (Applied Sciences) from the University of Madurai in 1979 and M.Sc. (Applied Chemistry) from the University of Madras in 1981. He received his M.S. (Polymer Science) in 1985 and Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1990, both from Carnegie Mellon University. He worked on flow and magnetic field induced instabilities of a rodlike polymer forming a nematic phase in solution under the supervision of Professor Guy Berry. He spent a few years as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Richard S. Stein at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst before moving to AT&T Bell Labs where he worked on polymer-dispersed liquid crystals for display device applications. He has been an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University since 1995. Presently, his research interests span color science including nanostructures in the biological world, physics of liquid crystals, flow properties of soft condensed matter, tracer diffusion in complex fluids, and light microscopy.