Born and educated in India, Rustum Roy received an M.S. degree in chemistry in 1948 and a Ph.D. in ceramics from Pennsylvania State University. With brief exception, he has taught and has conducted research at Pennsylvania State until the present. Roy has been a major figure in the emerging field of STS for more than two decades. During this period, he has combined a scientific-technical background in materials science with interests in science policy and education. He was the founding director of the Materials Research Laboratory at Penn State and is currently Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State, Professor of Geochemistry, and Professor of Science, Technology, and Society. Roy's… extensive research has focused on the synthesis of new ceramic materials. One of his most important publications is Radioactive Waste Disposal (1982), in which he covers the technical issues of radioactive-waste encapsulation. Among the vanguard of the scientists and engineers who increasingly came to recognize the societal implications of science and technology, Roy helped to establish the Penn State Science, Technology, and Society Program in 1969 and served for many years as its director. His experiences with this particular STS program and his concerns regarding science and technology have focused Roy's interests in three areas: science and technology policy, science education, and the science-religion interface. Roy has published widely in each of these areas and has been actively involved in science policy making and analysis at the state and federal levels, as well as having served on numerous advisory committees and boards. His Lost at the Frontier: U. S. Science and Technology Policy Adrift (1985), written with Deborah Shapley, critiques the pure science orientation of postwar policy. Some of the alternative national science policy proposals in this volume have exercised considerable influence. In addition, Roy has become an outspoken critic of the scientific peer-review system. Roy's experiences with the STS program at Penn State led to his involvement with major efforts to enhance the scientific and technological "literacy" of American students and future citizens. This was to be achieved by promoting an understanding of the social context of science and technology rather than by merely enhancing the training of professional scientists. To accomplish this end, Roy established an annual series of national Technology Literacy Conferences, which have evolved into the National Association of STS (NASTS). Roy serves as founder, corporate chair, and editor of the NASTS affiliated Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society. In his personal life, Roy's interest in the interface between science and religion have resulted in his appointment as first chair of the National Council of Churches Committee on Science, Technology, and the Church. He also has presented the prestigious Hibbert Lectures on Theology in London, which subsequently were published as Experimenting with Truth: The Fusion of Religion with Technological Need for Humanity's Survival (1981). Roy has successfully combined the attributes of established scientific research with scholarship and strong leadership in the science policy and science education arenas, and has readily transcended traditional disciplinary boundaries, which is a hallmark of STS proponents.