RG Barrera was born February 3, 1943 in Mexico City, Mexico. He studied physics at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City and graduated as physicist in 1965. In 1971 he obtained his PhD in Physics in the US at University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana under the supervision of Professor Gordon Baym. In his thesis work he developed a “Theory on the mobility of ions in superfluid helium”. Then he moved to Germany for a posdoc position to do work on surface physics under the supervision of Professor Eckard Gerlach. He stayed a year (1972) at University of Frankfurt and another year (1973) at the I Physikalisches Institut of the RW Technische Hochschule in Aachen. In 1973 he came back to Mexico City and joined the Institute of Physics of UNAM as an Assistant Professor and he has stayed there ever since. At the beginning of his career in Mexico he developed a theory on the surface energy of metals and the Casimir interaction between metal plates in collaboration with Charlie Duke, one of his former teachers at Illinois. Then he started a fruitful collaboration with Amit Bagchi, whom he also met at Illinois, on the optical properties of surfaces and adsorbed molecules. Later on he started to develop a research group at UNAM on the optical properties of metal and semiconductor surfaces as well as on the bulk optical properties of disordered composites. In 1984 he was appointed Full Professor in Physics. His main topic of research has been the optical properties of inhomogeneous systems and his recent work has been on the nonlocal character of the optical response in turbid colloids. Along the years, he developed a fruitful long-term collaboration with Ronald Fuchs from Iowa State University and with the experimental group of Yves Borensztein from University of Paris VI. He has done teaching in electrodynamics, solid-state and optics, at graduate and undergraduate levels. He has also supervised students with their thesis work at the doctorate, masters and senior levels. He has been also very much interested in applied physics and has been scientific consultant in national research labs as well as in research departments of private companies. In 1984 he was appointed Regular Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and in 2001 he was appointed Fellow of the American Physical Society, in 2003 he was awarded with the prize: Premio Universidad Nacional for his research in physics and his academic contributions to his university (UNAM), in 2004 he was appointed Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK) and in 2008 he was appointed Distinguished Professor (Investigador Emérito) of his Alma Mater (UNAM). Later on, in 2011, he was appointed Distinguished Researcher of the National System of Researchers (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores) of Mexico, and in 2012 he was awarded with the National Prize of the Sciences and the Arts in the area of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences. This prize is granted by the President of Mexico and is the highest recognition of the Mexican Government to scientists and artists.