Professor Simon Billinge is a prominent researcher in the fields of Materials Science and Applied Physics, with a focus on the study of local-structure property relationships in disordered crystals and nanocrystals using advanced x-ray and neutron diffraction techniques. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and has a B.A. from Oxford University. After a postdoctoral stint at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he joined Michigan State University in 1994 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, later becoming Associate Professor in 1999 and Full Professor in 2003. In 2008, he took on his current role at Columbia University, where he is also affiliated with the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Billinge has published over 200 papers in scholarly journals and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Neutron Scattering Society of America. He has received numerous accolades, including the Carnegie Corporation's honor for contributions as an immigrant in 2011 and the J.D. Hanawalt Award from the International Center for Diffraction Data. His research interests extend to diverse materials applications including energy, catalysis, environmental remediation, and pharmaceuticals.