John C. Kotz is a retired State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College at Oneonta. Educated at Washington and Lee University and Cornell University, he held National Institutes of Health postdoctoral appointments at the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology in England and at Indiana University. He has co-authored three textbooks in several editions: INORGANIC CHEMISTRY, CHEMISTRY & CHEMICAL REACTIVITY and THE CHEMICAL WORLD. He has also published research on inorganic chemistry and electrochemistry. Professor Kotz was a Fulbright Lecturer and Research Scholar in Portugal in 1979 and a visiting professor there in 1992, as well as a visiting professor at the Institute for Chemical Education (University of Wisconsin, 1991-1992) and at Auckland University in New Zealand (1999). He was an invited speaker on chemical education at conferences in South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil. Finally, he was a mentor for the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad Team for four years. He has received numerous honors, including a SUNY Chancellor's Award (1979), a National Catalyst Award for Excellence in Teaching (1992), the Estee Lectureship in Chemical Education at the University of South Dakota (1998), the Visiting Scientist Award from the Western Connecticut Section of the American Chemical Society (1999) and the first annual Distinguished Education Award from the Binghamton (New York) Section of the American Chemical Society (2001).