Barbaros Özyilmaz received his Diploma in Physics in 1999 from the Technical University of Aachen, Germany and his Ph.D. from New York University, USA in 2004. During his Ph.D. he has developed jointly with IBM. Spin transfer torque magnetic access memory, an emerging technology for high speed magnetic data storage. After his Ph.D. he has worked with Professor Philip Kim at Columbia University as a postdoctoral research fellow and made pioneering contributions to the field of graphene. In 2007 he has joined the NUS Physics Department as an assistant professor and has helped establish the Graphene Research Centre. He has published widely in this emerging field, filed numerous patents and is the recipient of awards such as the NUS Young Research Award and the NRF Fellowship. In 2014 he has been appointed Head of Graphene Research at the recently funded Centre for Advanced 2D Materials.