Ignacio RodrÃguez-Iturbe is Distinguished University Professor at Texas A&M University and J. S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor (Emeritus) at Princeton University, New Jersey. He is a member of the US National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Vatican Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded the Stockholm Water Prize and the Bowie, Horton and Macelwane Medals from the American Geophysical Union. He is the co-author of Fractal River Basins: Chance and Self-Organization (with Andrea Rinaldo, Cambridge, 1997) and Ecohydrology of Water-Controlled Ecosystems: Soil Moisture and Plant Dynamics (with Amilcare Porporato, Cambridge, 2005).