In inverse scattering theory, transmission eigenvalues can be seen as the extension of the notion of resonant frequencies for impenetrable objects to the case of penetrable dielectrics. The transmission eigenvalue problem is a relatively late arrival to the spectral theory of partial differential equations. Its first appearance was in 1986 in a paper by Kirsch who was investigating the denseness of far-field patterns for scattering solutions of the Helmholtz equation or, in more modern terminology, the injectivity of the far-field operator [1]. The paper of Kirsch was soon followed by a more systematic study by Colton and Monk in the context of developing the dual space method for solving the inverse scattering problem for acoustic waves in an inhomogeneous medium [2]. In this paper they showed that for a spherically stratified media transmission eigenvalues existed and formed a discrete set. Numerical examples were also given showing that in principle transmission eigenvalues could be determined from the far-field data. This first period of interest in transmission eigenvalues was concluded with papers by Colton et al in 1989 [3] and Rynne and Sleeman in 1991 [4] showing that for an inhomogeneous medium (not necessarily spherically stratified) transmission eigenvalues, if they existed, formed a discrete set. For the next seventeen years transmission eigenvalues were ignored. This was mainly due to the fact that, with the introduction of various sampling methods to determine the shape of an inhomogeneous medium from far-field data, transmission eigenvalues were something to be avoided and hence the fact that transmission eigenvalues formed at most a discrete set was deemed to be sufficient. In addition, questions related to the existence of transmission eigenvalues or the structure of associated eigenvectors were recognized as being particularly difficult due to the nonlinearity of the eigenvalue problem and the special structure of the associated transmission eigenvalue problem. The need to answer these questions became important after a series of papers by Cakoni et al [5], and Cakoni et al [6] suggesting that these transmission eigenvalues could be used to obtain qualitative information about the material properties of the scattering object from far-field data. The first answer to the existence of transmission eigenvalues in the general case was given in 2008 when Päivärinta and Sylvester showed the existence of transmission eigenvalues for the index of refraction sufficiently large [7] followed in 2010 by the paper of Cakoni et al who removed the size restriction on the index of refraction [8]. More importantly, in the latter it was shown that transmission eigenvalues yielded qualitative information on the material properties of the scattering object and Cakoni et al established in [9] that transmission eigenvalues could be determined from the Tikhonov regularized solution of the far-field equation. Since the appearance of these papers there has been an explosion of interest in the transmission eigenvalue problem (we refer the reader to our recent survey paper [10] for a detailed account of the developments in this field up to 2012) and the papers in this special issue are representative of the myriad directions that this research has taken. Indeed, we are happy to see that many open theoretical and numerical questions raised in [10] have been answered (totally or partially) in the contributions of this special issue: the existence of transmission eigenvalues with minimal assumptions on the contrast, the numerical evaluation of transmission eigenvalues, the inverse spectral problem, applications to non-destructive testing, etc. In addition to these topics, many other new investigations and research directions have been proposed as we shall see in the brief content summary below. A number of papers in this special issue are concerned with the question of existence of transmission eigenvalues and the structure of the associated transmission eigenfunctions. The three papers by respectively Robbiano [11], Blasten and Päivärinta [12], and Lakshtanov and Vainberg [13] provide new complementary results on the existence of transmission eigenvalues for the scalar problem under weak assumptions on the (possibly complex valued) refractive index that mainly stipulates that the contrast does not change sign on the boundary. It is interesting here to see three different new methods to obtain these results. On the other hand, the paper by Bonnet-Ben Dhia and Chesnel [14] addresses the Fredholm properties of the interior transmission problem when the contrast changes sign on the boundary, exhibiting cases where this property fails. Using more standard approaches, the existence and structure of transmission eigenvalues are analyzed in the paper by Delbary [15] for the case of frequency dependent materials in the context of Maxwell's equations, whereas the paper by Vesalainen [16] initiates the study of the transmission eigenvalue problem in unbounded domains by considering the transmission eigenvalues for Schrödinger equation with non-compactly supported potential. The paper by Monk and Selgas [17] addresses the case where the dielectric is mounted on a perfect conductor and provides some numerical examples of the localization of associated eigenvalues using the linear sampling method. A series of papers then addresses the question of localization of transmission eigenvalues and the associated inverse spectral problem for spherically stratified media. More specifically, the paper by Colton and Leung [18] provides new results on complex transmission eigenvalues and a new proof for uniqueness of a solution to the inverse spectral problem, whereas the paper by Sylvester [19] provides sharp results on how to locate all the transmission eigenvalues associated with angular independent eigenfunctions when the index of refraction is constant. The paper by Gintides and Pallikarakis [20] investigates an iterative least square method to identify the spherically stratified index of refraction from transmission eigenvalues. On the characterization of transmission eigenvalues in terms of far-field measurements, a promising new result is obtained by Kirsch and Lechleiter [21] showing how one can identify the transmission eigenvalues using the eigenvalues of the scattering operator which are available in terms of measured scattering data. In the paper by Kleefeld [22], an accurate method for computing transmission eigenvalues based on a surface integral formulation of the interior transmission problem and numerical methods for nonlinear eigenvalue problems is proposed and numerically validated for the scalar problem in three dimensions. On the other hand, the paper by Sun and Xu [23] investigates the computation of transmission eigenvalues for Maxwell's equations using a standard iterative method associated with a variational formulation of the interior transmission problem with an emphasis on the effect of anisotropy on transmission eigenvalues. From the perspective of using transmission eigenvalues in non-destructive testing, the paper by Cakoni and Moskow [24] investigates the asymptotic behavior of transmission eigenvalues with respect to small inhomogeneities. The paper by Nakamura and Wang [25] investigates the linear sampling method for the time dependent heat equation and analyses the interior transmission problem associated with this equation. Finally, in the paper by Finch and Hickmann [26], the spectrum of the interior transmission problem is related to the unique determination of the acoustic properties of a body in thermoacoustic imaging. We hope that this collection of papers will stimulate further research in the rapidly growing area of transmission eigenvalues and inverse scattering theory.