Dr. Liaw graduated from Chiayi High School, obtained his B.S. in Physics from the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University, USA, in 1980. After working at the Westinghouse Research and Development (R&D) Center for thirteen years, he joined the faculty. He became an Endowed Ivan Racheff Chair of Excellence in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, in March 1993. He has been working in fatigue, fracture, nondestructive evaluation, and life-prediction methodologies of structural alloys and composites. Since joining UT, his research interests include mechanical behavior, nondestructive evaluation, biomaterials, and processing of high-temperature alloys and ceramic-matrix composites and coatings with the kind and great help of his colleagues at UT and the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was awarded the Royal E. Cabell Fellowship at Northwestern University. He is a recipient of numerous “Outstanding Performance” awards from the Westinghouse R&D Center.