Uwe Kortshagen is Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Director of Graduate Studies of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, and a member of the graduate faculties of Physics, Chemical Engineering, and Materials Science. He is Director of the NSF-IGERT program for Nanoparticle Science and Engineering and serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the Minor in Nanoparticle Science and Engineering. He earned his Diploma degree in Plasma Physics in 1988, and his Ph.D. in Plasma Physics in 1991 from the University of Bochum, Germany, under Hans Schlueter. He came to the U.S.A. in 1995 with an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and spent a year in the Dept. of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working with James E. Lawler. He was awarded the Habilitation in Experimental Physics at the University of Bochum in 1995. In 1996, he joined the University of Minnesota as Assistant Professor, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1999, and to Full Professor in 2003. He serves as President of the International Plasma Chemistry Society, was awarded the 2005 Institute of Technology-George Taylor Award for Distinguished Research, and was named Distinguished McKnight University Professor of the University of Minnesota in 2007. His expertise is in the plasma synthesis and functionalization of nanomaterials, in particular, group IV nanocrystals. His work has been published in close to one hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals and received over 1,400 citations.