This volume consists of a collection of articles centered around topics in commutative ring theory influenced or inspired by Robert Gilmer. The articles were solicited by the editors from experts in the field and each represents the state of the topic at the time of publication. Some of the articles are original research papers and some are expository. Several of the expository articles also contain original research. It is the editors' hope and intention that the volume will be useful to current researchers in the field and an inspiration to others to study this beautiful area of mathematics of which we are so fond. The volume is also intended to be a tribute to our friend and colleague, Robert Gilmer, whose work and presence has inspired us as well as others. We would like to thank the authors for their contributions, the referees for their work and Dr. John Martindale, Senior Editor, and Mr. Robert Saley, Assistant Editor, of Springer for their encouragement and help with this project. We thank also Jim Coykendall, Mitch Keller and The Mathematics Genealogy Project for providing us with Robert Gilmer's mathematics genealogy. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to Robert himself for his contributions to the volume, both inspirational and actual.