Michael Hoffmann received a BA degree in chemistry in 1968 from Northwestern University and a PhD degree in chemical kinetics from Brown University in 1974. In 1973, he was awarded an NIH post-doctoral training fellowship in Environmental Engineering Science at the California Institute of Technology. Hoffmann has served as a Professor of Environmental Engineering and Environmental Chemistry since 1975. From 1975 to 1980, he was member of the faculty at the University of Minnesota and since 1980 a member of the faculty at Caltech (Engineering & Applied Science). Dr. Hoffmann has published more than 220 peer-reviewed professional papers and is the holder of 7 patents in the subject areas of applied chemical kinetics, aquatic chemistry, atmospheric chemistry, environmental chemistry, catalytic oxidation, heterogeneous photochemistry, sonochemistry, electrochemistry, and pulsed-plasma chemistry. Dr. Hoffmann has served as the Chairman of the Gordon Research Conference, Environmental Sciences: Water and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research. He is currently on the Editorial Boards of Environmental Science and Technology and the Journal of Physical Chemistry. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. In 1991, Dr. Hoffmann received the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for his research and teaching in environmental chemistry. In 1995, Dr. Hoffmann was presented with the E. Gordon Young Award by the Chemical Society of Canada in recognition of his work in the field of environmental chemistry. He has also served as a Distinguished Lecturer at the Hebrew University (Jerusalem), the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), and the University of Buenos Aires. In 2001, Dr. Hoffmann was presented with the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology for "his fundamental and lasting contributions to the science of aquatic chemistry, to the development of aquatic remediation processes, and to understanding heterogeneous and multiphase processes in the atmospheric environment." Prof. Hoffmann was honored recently as “Davis Memorial Lecturer in Chemistry” at the University of New Orleans and the Dodge Distinguished Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at Yale, the Harold S. Johnston Lecturer in Physical Chemistry at the University of California – Berkeley, and the A. R. Gordon Distinguished Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Toronto. In addition, Prof. Hoffmann was awarded the Jack E. McKee Medal for Groundwater Protection by the Water Environment Federation in October 2003. In 2005, Prof. Hoffmann received a continuation award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in support of an extended sabbatical at the University of Hannover.