  Abdus Salam was a true master of 20th Century Theoretical Physics. Not only
was he a pioneer of the Standard Model (for which he shared the Nobel Prize
with S. Glashow and S.Weinberg), but he also (co)authored many other
outstanding contributions to the field of Fundamental Interactions and their
unification. In particular, he was a major contributor to the development of
supersymmetric theories, where he also coined the word "Supersymmetry"
(replacing the earlier "Supergauges" drawn from String Theory). He also
introduced the basic concept of "Superspace" and the notion of "Goldstone
Fermion"(Goldstino). These concepts proved instrumental for the exploration of
the ultraviolet properties and for the study of spontaneously broken phases of
super Yang-Mills theories and Supergravity. They continue to play a key role in
current developments in Early-Universe Cosmology. In this contribution we
review models of inflation based on Supergravity with spontaneously broken
local supersymmetry, with emphasis on the role of nilpotent superfields to
describe a de Sitter phase of our Universe.
