Prof. Dr. Lei Zhai is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Director of the NanoScience Technology Center at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before he joined UCF in 2005. His research at UCF focuses on the self-assembly of polymers, nanocomposites, polyelectrolyte nanostructures, and polymer-derived ceramic composites. He has more than 20 years of experience in materials development and characterization. He has published more than 110 peer-reviewed scientific articles and has 11 granted patents. His publications have been cited more than 18,000 times according to Google Scholar. Dr. Zhai is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and is a Scialog Fellow (Research Corporation for Science Advancement). He received the Outstanding Chemist Award at the American Chemical Society (ACS)—Orlando Section in 2013, and serves as the associate editor of Materials.