David J. Keffer was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He pursued a technical education earning a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. After a year as a post-doctoral scholar at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., he began his career as an engineering professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where he remains today, leading a computational research group interested in materials relevant to the pursuit of sustainable energy. He has published about 120 technical papers in archival journals. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant and spent a year (2010-11) at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. Prof. Keffer's teaching and recent interests focus on the intersection of computational materials science and sustainability. An understanding of the processing-structure-property-performance relationships of materials relevant to the generation, conversion and storage of renewable energy plays a distinct role in the interdisciplinary response to addressing the global climate/energy crisis. Prof. Keffer also has an active interest in undergraduate retention and student success. He leads the TranSCEnD project, which provides academic, social and financial support to engineering students at UT who have transferred from Tennessee community colleges.