Preface to special issue in honor of Carlos Castillo-Chavez

A little more than a quarter-century ago, I received an inquiry from a young Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Tulsa, the honoree of this volume, Carlos Castillo-Chavez. Though he was well situated in a faculty job, he was not satisfied: He was interested in mathematical biology, having written an excellent thesis in population biology with Fred Brauer at Wisconsin entitled Linear and Nonlinear Deterministic Character-Dependent Models with Time Delay in Population Dynamics. But that success had only whetted his appetite to become more deeply embedded in biology, and he was prepared to give up his faculty job to start a postdoctoral fellowship in ecology. It is always difficult to read in such letters what potential exists in the author; but there was something about what Carlos wrote, the obvious sacrifice he was prepared to make, and my regard for Fred Brauer that convinced me that I must meet this fellow. We did meet, for lunch in an LA restaurant, and the qualities that have led to his remarkable career were immediately obvious. I resolved on the spot to make sure he joined our group. Carlos arrived at Cornell shortly thereafter, and did not leave for nearly twenty years.