Dr. T. A. Venkatesh is currently an Associate Professor in the Materials Science and Chemical Engineering department at Stony Brook University, New York. He received his doctoral degree in Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. Through modeling and experimental approaches, his research group is focused on understanding material behaviour such as mechanical strength, fracture, fatigue and high temperature response of structural materials and multi-functional behavior of smart materials, with applications in the clean energy, sensors and biomedical systems.He is the recipient of US National Science Foundation’s Early Career Award. He has made pioneering contributions to the field of smart composites and ultra low density structured smart foams with unique electromechanical properties. He is also the principal investigator, leading a large multi-disciplinary University-National Laboratory-Industry effort, with MIT and Stanford, in developing advanced materials for the hydrogen economy. He has published over 70 papers and his publications have received over 4000 citations.