LAURA MERSINI-HOUGHTON is an internationally renowned cosmologist and theoretical physicist and is one of the world's leading experts on the multiverse and the origins of the universe. Currently, she is a professor of theoretical physics and cosmology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a visiting professor at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. She has been the subject of hundreds of articles in leading popular science magazines and has appeared on the Science Channel's Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, as well as on documentaries on the Discovery Channel and the BBC. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.