John S. Baras, a Distinguished University Professor, holds the Lockheed Martin Chair in Systems Engineering, a Joint Appointment with the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) and the ECE Department at the University of Maryland College Park. He received his Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics in 1973 from Harvard University, and has been with UMD since then. From 1985 to 1991, he became Founding Director of the ISR. Since 1992, he has directed the Maryland Center for Hybrid Networks, which he co-founded. He is a Fellow of IEEE (Life), SIAM, AAAS, NAI, IFAC, AMS, AIAA, Member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Major honors and awards include the 1980 George Axelby Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society, the 2006 Leonard Abraham Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, the 2017 IEEE Simon Ramo Medal, the 2017 AACC Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, and the 2018 AIAA Aerospace Communications Award. In 2016, he was inducted into the University of Maryland A. J. Clark School of Engineering Innovation Hall of Fame. In June 2018, he was awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by his alma mater, the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. His research interests include systems, control, optimization, autonomy, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and communication.