Paul Mulvaney is an ARC Laureate Fellow (2011-2015) and Professor of Chemistry in the School of Chemistry and Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne. He received his PhD degree at the University of Melbourne in 1989, working on surface electron transfer kinetics with Professor Franz Grieser. He is currently Chair of the Australian Colloid and Surface Chemistry Division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. His interests include the optical properties of nanocrystals, surface forces, nanomechanics, surface plasmon spectroscopy and nanocrystal based electronics. To date he has published some 200 scientific papers and is co-inventor on 5 commercialised patents. Professor Mulvaney currently serves on the editorial boards of the A or A* journals: NanoToday, Advanced Functional Materials, Journal of Materials Chemistry, Langmuir, Small and PCCP. He was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences in 2009.