I am pleased as punch that Katalin Marton won the 2013 Shannon Award. She made seminal contributions in information theory in the earlier years but has been active in combinatorics and stochastic processes since. Many people start doing information theory because of an interest in digital communications — my own academic background reflects this — we get some blinders on regarding the role information theory plays in other fields, such as statistics (c.f. Rissanen) and combinatorics (c.f. Ahlswede). It’s great to see Marton’s work recognized, and I hope she talks about some of her more recent interests. Finally, I find it inspirational that a woman has finally won the Shannon Award — it’s a sign of the change that is happening in engineering more broadly, I hope.