Alain Barrat obtained his PhD in theoretical physics at the university of Paris VI (France) in 1996. He then spent two years at the Abdus Salam ICTP in Trieste, Italy, as a postdoctoral fellow. In 1998, he entered the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) of France with a permanent position as junior researcher. He spent 10 years as a CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire de Physique Théorique at the University of Paris-Sud. He is currently CNRS senior researcher at the Centre de Physique Théorique in Marseille, France. He is also research scientist at the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Turin, Italy.  His research interests are in the field of disordered systems and out of equilibrium statistical mechanics. In the last years, his activity has focused on the study of complex networks and of the attached dynamical processes. His research has interdisciplinary applications such as the analysis of technological networks (Internet, transportation networks), the understanding of consensus formation in social networks or the study of epidemic spreading phenomena. Home page: http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~barrat