David W. Ball received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Chemistry from Rice University, and his B.S. in Chemistry from Baylor University. He currently serves as a Professor of Chemistry at Cleveland State University. He has served in the past as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and at Rice University. His research interests include: infrared spectroscopic studies of matrix-isolated species, especially the interaction of transition metal atoms with small molecules; computational chemistry of metal atom molecule interactions and other intermolecular interactions; chemistry of model lubricant compounds and their decomposition products; thermochemistry of new fuel materials;… various topics in chemical education. David is affiliated with several professional organizations including the American Chemical Society, Cleveland Technical Societies Council, Ohio Supercomputer Center, Contributing Editor, SPECTROSCOPY magazine, Northeastern Ohio Science and Engineering Fair and many more. He has received several awards for outstanding teaching, and publishes extensively in the educational literature. Previous books include a textbook in physical chemistry (published by ITP) and a primer on the basics of spectroscopy (published by SPIE Press). He has received many research grants over the years, provided numerous presentations, and has almost 110 publications.