Moshe Y. Vardi is the George Professor in Computational Engineering and Director of the Computer and Information Technology Institute at Rice University. He chaired the Computer Science Department at Rice University from January 1994 till June 2002. Prior to joining Rice in 1993, he was at the IBM Almaden Research Center, where he managed the Mathematics and Related Computer Science Department. His research interests include database systems, computational-complexity theory, multi-agent systems, and design specification and verification. Vardi received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1981. He is the author and co-author of over 300 technical papers, as well as two books, "Reasoning about Knowledge" and "Finite Model Theory and Its Applications", and the editor of several collections.Vardi is the recipient of three IBM Outstanding Innovation Awards, a co-winner of the 2000 Goedel Prize, a co-winner of the 2005 ACM Paris Kanellakis Award for Theory and Practice, and a co-winner of the LICS 2006 Test-of-Time Award. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Saarland, Germany, and the University of Orleans, France. Vardi is an editor of several international journals, and Editor-in-Chief of the Communication of ACM. He is Guggenheim Fellow, as well as a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. He was designated Highly Cited Researcher by the Institute for Scientific Information, and was elected as a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the European Academy of Sciences, and the Academia Europea. He recently co-chaired the ACM Task Force on Job Migration.