Andrei L. Kholkin received the Ph.D. degree from the A. F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1987.,He held research positions at IFW, Dresden, Germany, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA. He is currently a Research Coordinator and the Head of the Laboratory of Advanced Microscopy of Nanomaterials, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal. His laboratory develops multifunctional materials and scanning probe microscopy techniques. He has authored or coauthored over 500 technical papers in this area including numerous reviews and book chapters.,Dr. Kholkin is a member of the Ferroelectric Standing Committee of IEEE, the Materials Research Society, and the Portuguese Materials Society. He was a recipient of the Excellency Award from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and Ferroelectrics Recognition Award of IEEE. He is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control and a member of editorial boards of several journals.