Sergio R. López-Permouth did his undergraduate work at Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.  His graduate work was, respectively, at Ohio University for the M.Sc. degree and at North Carolina State University for the Ph.D.  He has been in the faculty of the department of Mathematics at Ohio University since 1986 where he is currently a Full Professor of Mathematics. Dr. López-Permouth was department chair during 1996-1999. His research focuses in Ring and Module Theory as well as on Coding and Information Theory.  He is a member of the American Mathematical Society (AMS.)

He has authored and co-authored more than 45 papers in these areas and has co-edited three research volumes containing the proceedings of three of the approximately one dozen conferences and special session that he has organized. His research papers have appeared in venues such as the the Proceedings of the AMS, the Journal of Algebra, Applicable Algebra in Engineering Communication and Computing, Finite Fields and their Applications, and the IEEE Transactions in Information Science. The books he has edited have been published by Springer-Verlag and by the Contemporary Mathematics Series of the AMS.

Dr. López-Permouth has been active as an organizer of special sessions in Ring Theory for joint meetings of AMS and the Sociedad Matemática Mexicana.  He has organized one of these sessions in every one of the six joint meetings between these two professional societies. Likewise, he co-organized a session on ring theory at the first joint meeting of AMS and the Real Sociedad Matemática Espanola and another such session at the first joint meeting between AMS and the mathematical societies of Germany and Austria.

Dr. López-Permouth has traveled extensively through the United States and all over the world as an invited speaker to present his research. He has lectured at conferences and seminars in Brazil, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Guatemala, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Uruguay and Vietnam.
He is a founding executive editor for the Journal of Algebra and its Applications, a founding editor for the Journal Advances in the Mathematics of Communication, and a member of the editorial board of both Revista de Matemáticas and of the East-West Journal of Mathematics.

His collaboration with members of the School of Electrical Engineering of the Russ College of Engineering at Ohio University, supported by grants from the United States Air Force, has yielded several publications and one US patent (Apparatus and Method of CTCM encoding and decoding for a digital communication system).  The coding system that Dr. López-Permouth co-invented with his collaborators from EECS is currently being used by the United States Air Force through a contract with Rockwell Collins.

Dr. López-Permouth’s contributions to the curriculum include the creation of four doctoral level courses on Coding and Information theory (Math 620, 621, 622 and 623) as well as an introductory Algebraic Coding Theory course for senior undergraduates and Master’s level graduate students (Math 4/512.)
Dr. López-Permouth has advised seven Ph.D. students in Ring Theory and Coding Theory.