The author, Paul Monk, was brought up in Hastings, on England's south coast, where he attended a local comprehensive school. Despite this education, he achieved entrance to the University of Exeter to read Chemistry. Having obtained a B. Sc. degree and then a doctorate (in 1989) on the electrochemistry of the viologens, he was awarded a fellowship at the University of Aberdeen to study the electrochromism of thin films of tungsten trioxide. He joined the staff of the Department of Chemistry and Materials, Manchester Metropolitan University in 1991 as a lecturer in Physical Chemistry. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1998. He enjoys writing, and is also the author of the books Electrochromism: Fundamentals and Applications and The Viologens, both of these published by John Wiley & Sons. Paul Monk is married, in which state he is instructed to profess great happiness, and is also a Methodist Local Preacher.