Vinay Vaishampayan obtained a B.Tech degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India in 1981, and MS and PhD degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, in electrical engineering, in 1986 and 1989. He worked as a geophysical engineer for Schlumberger wireline services from 1981 to 1983. After obtaining a PhD, he joined the electrical engineering department at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, as an Assistant Professor, in 1989, and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1995. In 1996, he joined AT&T Labs-Research, Shannon Laboratory—one of the premier telecommunication research labs in the US—as a member of technical staff. At Shannon Laboratory, he was promoted and served in the capacity of head of the communication sciences research department from 2000-2005, and then as distinguished member of technical staff until November 2013. From Dec. 2013-August 2014, he held the position of visiting research professor at DIMACS, Rutgers University. In August 2014, he joined the department of Engineering Science and Physics at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, as Professor. Since 2008, he has also held the position of Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University. His research interests are in communications, signal processing, information theory and statistical modeling.