This and the following issue of Cardiovascular Engineering are special issues reflecting research discussed during an interdisciplinary focused workshop entitled Short-term Cardiovascular–Respiratory Control Mechanisms. The workshop was organized by Mette Olufsen and Hien Tran at the Department of Mathematics at North Carolina State University, Jerry Batzel and Franz Kappel at the Institute for Mathematics and Scientific Computing, University of Graz, and Vera Novak at the Department of Gerontology at Harvard Medical School, and hosted by the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM), Palo Alto, California, October 9–13, 2006. The workshop was co-sponsored by AIM and the National Science Foundation.