Shinzō Watanabe is a Japanese mathematician, who has made fundamental contributions to probability theory, stochastic processes and stochastic differential equations. He is revered as a luminary in the field of modern probability theory and stochastic calculus. The pioneering book “Stochastic Differential Equations and Diffusion Processes” he wrote with Nobuyuki Ikeda has attracted a lot of researchers into the area and is known as the “Ikeda-Watanabe” for researchers in the field of stochastic analysis. He serves as the editor of Springer Mathematics.