Ram Seshadri received his Ph.D. in 1995 from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. After some years as a post-doctoral fellow in the CNRS in Caen, France, and in the University of Mainz, Germany, he joined the faculty of the Indian Institute of Science in 1999. He moved to the Materials Department, UCSB in 2002 as an Assistant Professor, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006 and Professor in 2008. In Fall 2007, he also joined the faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The research currently being pursued addresses magnetic phenomena in insulating oxides, half-metallic ferromagnetism, magnetic nanocomposites, catalytic oxides and carbides, the structure and electronic structure of polar and semiconducting materials (bulk as well as nano), luminescent materials for solid state lighting, high refractive index materials, and conducting nanowires.