AS a tribute to individuals who have contributed significantly, and over many years, to the terahertz community, and as a guide and inspiration for those who are just beginning their professional association with this field of study, these transactions have included, on a regular basis, a series of biographical interviews with technical researchers who have appreciably impacted the THz community in a positive manner. In order to go beyond a strict technical review and to take better advantage of the information and commentary only available through a direct discussion, these articles take on a less formal style than the research articles that can be found within the remaining pages of the transactions. The Editor-in-Chief has taken some leeway in this regard, for the benefit of communicating more fully the character, experiences, and historic circumstances that have shaped our community and set the directions for our collective research. As a further means of assuring that the true flavor and circumstances of the contributions are expressed in the text, all of the articles are compiled after a face-to-face interview. The final text is shared with, and often helped considerably, by comments from the subject of the article. The Editor-in-Chief, with the support of the IEEE MTT-S Publications Committee, has chosen to incorporate these biographical articles within the more formal technical journal because of the diversity of disciplines that make up the THz community and the prior absence of a single unifying publication with sufficient outreach to extend across the whole of the RF and optical THz disciplines. The Editor-in-Chief hopes you will enjoy the short diversion of reading these articles as much as he himself enjoys the process of composing them.For the seventh article in this series, we again return to the tap root of terahertz science, radio astronomy. This month we are extremely excited to relay some experiences from Caltech Professor Tom Phillips, whose pioneering career laid the groundwork for much of submillimeter-wave astronomy. Not only is he personally responsible for developing two of the key ultra-low noise receiver technologies that have pushed THz spectral line astronomy into outer space and into the public eye, but his Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) has been the basis for 75 doctoral theses and countless scientific papers from facility Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TTHZ.2012 users around the globe since it started operations in 1987. Professor Phillip's list of supportive colleagues, former students and post-doctoral fellows is a Who's Who in THz science and astronomy 1 and we are very fortunate to be able to bring some of his history to you.Unfortunately, these are uncertain financial times for scientists in the U.S. and around the world, as evidenced by the handover in May 2012 of operational funding support for the very successful Galex (Galaxy Evolution Explorer) Space Telescope, by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration to private donors 2 , and the recently la...
