Dr. Dhananjay Kumar is currently a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He is well recognized for his pioneering research and teaching in the areas of thin films and nanomaterials. He has published more than 125 papers in peer-reviewed journals with more than a few thousand citations. He has developed a pulsed laser deposition-assisted synthesis method for the self-assembly of low-dimensional nanophase materials. He has sponsored the research of more than 25 graduate students and four doctoral fellows at NCAT. Dr. Kumar is currently supervising six doctoral students and two undergraduate students. He is presently heading two multi-institutional centers: the Center for Electrochemical Dynamics and Reactions on Surfaces (CEDARS) and Collaborative Research and Education and Energy Materials (CREEM).