Tribute to Hellmut Eckert

to our mentor, colleague, and friend, Hellmut Eckert, in honor of his 65th birthday and in appreciation of his rather outstanding contributions in the field of glass chemistry, solid-state chemistry, and magnetic resonance.With more than 65 Ph.D. students graduating from his groups in Santa Barbara, Munster, and Saõ Carlos, over 550 papers and book chapters, and collaborations with an impressive number of colleagues from all over the world, Hellmut Eckert definitely has left his mark with a career that has spanned both the globe and multiple arenas of materials science and magnetic resonance.Hellmut Eckert obtained his Ph.D. in 1982 from the Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitaẗ Munster (WWU Munster) in Germany, working on the structural characterization of amorphous and nonstoichiometric chalcogenides using magnetic resonance spectroscopy with Werner Muller-Warmuth.For his thesis entitled "NMR-Untersuchungen an Glasigen und Nicht-stochiometrischen Chalkogenidsystemen" ("NMR Investigations on Glassy and Nonstoichiometric Chalcogenide Systems"), he was awarded the dissertation prize of WWU Munster.What followed was a journey across the United States, first with a postdoctoral appointment at Rutgers University, New Jersey, with Rolfe Herber, applying Moßbauer spectroscopy to study redox chemistry in intercalation compounds.Next came a short stay as visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, working with Dan Fiat.The trek then culminated with a move to the West Coast, taking