Mrinal K. Sen is a Jackson Chair Professor in Applied Seismology at the University of Texas, Austin, and in January 2012, while on sabbatical leave, became Director of the National Geophysical Research Institute at Hyderabad, India. His research areas include seismic wave propagation, inverse problems, seismic imaging, reservoir characterization and computational geophysics, and he is an expert on seismic wave propagation including anisotropy and fractures, developing analytic and numerical techniques for forward and inverse modeling. Professor Sen is the principal author of two books on geophysical inversion, the co-author of over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has been an instructor on several industry short courses. He serves on several national and international committees and is an Associate Editor of leading journals such as Geophysics, the Journal of Seismic Exploration and the International Journal of Geophysics.