James B. Riggs earned his B.S. in 1969 and his M.S. in 1972, both from the University of Texas at Austin. In 1977, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Riggs was a university professor for 30 years, the first five years being spent at West Virginia University and the remainder at Texas Tech University. In addition, he had more than five years of industrial experience in a variety of capacities. His research interests centered on advanced process control and process optimization. During his academic career he served as an industrial consultant and founded the Texas Tech Process Control and Optimization Consortium, which he directed for 15 years. Dr. Riggs authored several other popular undergraduate chemical engineering textbooks: Computational Methods for Chemical Engineers, Programming with MATLAB for Engineers, and Chemical and Bio-Process Control, Fifth Edition.