Robert E. Schafrik, Chair, is currently the general manager of the Materials and Process Engineering Department at GE Aviation. He is responsible for the development of advanced materials and processes used in GE's aeronautical turbine engines and their marine and industrial derivatives. He oversees materials application and engineering activities supporting design engineering, manufacturing, and field-support activities worldwide. He also operates a state-of-the-art in-house laboratory for advanced materials development, characterization, and failure analysis. Before joining GE in November 1997, Dr. Schafrik served in two concurrent positions within the National Research Council, which he joined in 1991: director of the National Materials Advisory Board and director of the Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design. He also served in the U.S. Air Force. His career highlights there included research metallurgist, manufacturing technologist, materials application engineer, manager of F-16 engine programs, and headquarters manager of air superiority weapons programs. Dr. Schafrik has a Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from Ohio State University, an M.S. in information systems from George Mason University, an M.S. in aerospace engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in metallurgy from Case Western Reserve University.

Martin A. Crimp is a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at Michigan State University. He is an expert in the development and use of a variety of advanced characterization and imaging tools. His research applies a variety of innovative analysis tools to describe and illustrate the design, performance, and failure of advanced materials. Some examples include the creative use of scanning electron microscopy to image atomic-scale features through electron channeling contrast imaging; the use of electron energy-loss spectroscopy to study environmental and radiation effects on carbon nanotubes; and the use of advanced transmission electron microscopy techniques such as convergent-beam electron diffraction to study the growth of nanowires and nanostructures. Dr. Crimp has a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University and M.S. and B.S. degrees from Michigan Technological University.

Charles B. Duke is vice president and senior research fellow in the Xerox Innovation Group. Before taking this position, he was deputy director and chief scientist of the Pacific Northwest Division of the Battelle Memorial Institute and affiliate professor of physics at the University of Washington. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1963 following a B.S. summa cum laude with distinction in mathematics from Duke University in 1959. Dr. Duke is a fellow and an honorary member of the American Vacuum Society, a fellow of the American Physical Society, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a member of the Materials Research Society, and a life member of