James E. Humphreys is presently Professor of Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Before this, he held the posts of Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oregon and Associate Professor of Mathematics at New York University. His main research interests include group theory and Lie algebras. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1961. He did graduate work in philosophy and mathematics at Cornell University and later received hi Ph.D. from Yale University if 1966. In 1972, Springer-Verlag published his first book, "Introduction to Lie Algebras and Representation Theory" (graduate Texts in Mathematics Vol. 9).