John R. Howell received his academic degrees from Case Western Reserve University (then Case Institute of Technology), Cleveland, Ohio. He began his engineering career as a researcher at NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center (1961–1968) and then took academic positions at the University of Houston (1978–1988) and the University of Texas at Austin, where he remained until retirement in 2012. He is presently Ernest Cockrell, Jr., Memorial Chair Emeritus. He pioneered the use of the Monte Carlo method for the analysis of radiative heat transfer in complex systems that contain absorbing, emitting, and scattering media. Jack has concentrated his research on computational techniques for radiative transfer and combined-mode problems for over 60 years. Recently, he has adapted inverse solution techniques to combined-mode problems and to radiation at the nanoscale. His awards in heat transfer include the ASME/AIChE Max Jakob Medal (1998), ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award (1991), AIAA Thermophysics Award (1990), the Poynting Award from JQSRT (2013) and the 2018 International Center for Heat and Mass Transfer Luikov Medal. He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (2005) and a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1999). He is an Honorary Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME).