Dr. Jaime Grunlan is the Leland T. Jordan ’29 Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, where he has worked for 16 years. He holds joint appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Chemistry. His research focuses on thermal and transport properties of polymer nanocomposites. He is a world leader in organic thermoelectric materials, gas barrier layers and environmentally benign, flame-retardant nanocoatings. He holds 14 issued U.S. patents and several EU patents that have been licensed to more than 10 companies. He has published more than 170 journal papers, with more than 17,000 citations. Dr. Grunlan has graduated 24 PhD students and has mentored more than 50 undergraduate students in his research laboratory. His work has been highlighted in the Smithsonian Magazine and the New York Times. He is an Editor of the Journal of Materials Science and serves on the International Advisory Board for Macromolecular Rapid Communications and Macromolecular Materials and Engineering. In 2018, Prof. Grunlan became a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and was awarded a doctorate honoris causa (i.e. honorary doctorate) from the University of South Brittany (Lorient, France). In 2019, he became a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).