Ken H. Sandhage received a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering with Highest Distinction from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Ceramics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After working as a Senior Scientist on the processing of optical fibers at Corning, and oxide superconductors at American Superconductor Corp., he joined the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering at Ohio State University (1991). From 2003-2015, he was a faculty member in the School of MSE at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was the B. Mifflin Hood Professor. In 2015, Sandhage joined Purdue University as the Reilly Professor of Materials Engineering. Sandhage’s research is focused on the gas/solid and liquid/solid reaction processing, and conformal coating (via wet (bio)chemical strategies), of biogenic and synthetic structures to yield functional 3-D materials for energy, optical, medical, and aerospace applications. This research has yielded several patented methods for fabricating complex-shaped, chemically-tailored materials, including the Displacive Compensation of Porosity (DCP) and Biological Assembly and Shape-preserving Inorganic Conversion (BASIC) processes. Sandhage is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society.