Colm T. Whelan is a Professor in the Department of Physics, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA. He received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Atomic Physics from the University of Cambridge in 1985 and was elected an Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in 2003. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics (UK). He has edited five previous books and has written over 150 research papers, mostly on atomic collision physics.