Dr. Ashok Kumar is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of South Florida, Tampa. Dr. Kumar had served as the Director of Nanotechnology Research and Education Center (NREC) and is also affiliated faculty member of Clean Energy Research Center (CERC). Dr. Kumar is internationally recognized for contributions to fundamentals/engineering of Thin Film Technology for processing/advanced manufacturing applications. Dr. Kumar holds 10 patents and has published 3 textbooks, edited 7 proceeding books, 3 invited review articles, 12 book chapters including 225 peer reviewed articles (approx. 125 journal articles and 97 conference proceeding articles) and has presented approximately 315 papers in regional and national conferences including 55 invited talks. He has been an invited speaker and session organizer at many national and international meetings. Dr. Kumar also acted as Cluster Director of the Alabama NASA EPSCoR Advanced Materials research program to supervise the state-wide research activities comprising of five major universities and six small colleges with two HBCUs. Dr. Kumar has supervised 12 post-docs, 23 Ph.D. and 50 MS students as major professors. His research has been supported by federal agencies (NSF, NASA, DOD and DOE) and private companies, such as, Sematech, Honeywell, General Motors, Lucent Technologies, Novellus, IBM, and Cabot Microelectronics etc. Dr. Kumar has a strong commitment to integrating research and education with experience as an active member (PIs) for various NSF Grants (NRT, GK-12, S-STEM, REU & RET Sites etc.). His other interests include K-12 educational outreach, gender and science education and nanotechnology industrial outreach. His excellence as a researcher has been recognized by a number of honors, including ASM-IIM Visiting Lecture Award, Theodore and Venette Askounes Ashford Distinguished Scholar Award, USF Outstanding Faculty Research Achievement Award, USF President Faculty Excellence Award, NSF Faculty Early CAREER Development Award, National Research Council Twining Fellowship Award, and NSF and DOE EPSCoR Young Investigator Awards. He also received the Professor Honorario award from the Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia. Dr. Kumar is Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Society of Metals (ASM), American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), Society of Manufacturing Engineering (SME), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and National Academy of Inventors (NAI).