Ricardo Cortez is a Professor in the Mathematics Department and Director of the Center for Computational Science at Tulane University in New Orleans. He received BS degrees in mathematics (1986) and mechanical engineering (1988) from Arizona State University, and his PhD degree in applied mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1995. Before going to Tulane, Ricardo spent three years as an NSF postdoctoral researcher and Courant Instructor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York University.