Dr. Narottam Bansal is a Senior Research Scientist in the Ceramics Branch, Materials and Structures Division, NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH. After receiving his Ph. D. in 1973, he held post-doctoral research assignments in Canada and USA. He has carried out research in a number of areas: solid oxide fuel cells, thermal and environmental barrier coatings, fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites for high-temperature structural applications in turbine engines, high-temperature superconductors, sol-gel and combustion processing, refractory glass-ceramics, kinetics of phase transformations, IR-transmitting materials, electroanalytical techniques, ionic diffusion in melts. He has been team leader of a number of technical teams at NASA. Dr. Bansal is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society. He is recipient of NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievements, R & D 100 Award, Turning Goals into reality Award, and Hind Rattan Award. He has also received numerous Innovative Technology Development Awards and Tech Brief Awards from NASA and his biography has been included in more than 30 Who's Who. So far, he has organized 31 International Symposia and edited 23 Conference proceedings. He is author/co-author of 4 books, 6 invited book chapters, 3 review articles, 8 NASA Tech Briefs, and 215 research papers. He has been awarded seven U.S. Patents, so far. Dr. Bansal has been a member of the Technical Committees of International Commission on Glass and International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry. He has also served on the advisory boards of a number of international conferences.