Juan Claudio Nino is an Endowed Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, FL. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1997 at Los Andes University (Bogotá, Colombia). He was a Lecturer at the Colombian Engineering School before joining The Pennsylvania State University in 1998, where he completed his doctoral degree in Materials Science and Engineering in 2002. After a postdoctoral appointment focusing on ferroelectric thin films at the Materials Research Institute (State College, PA), he joined UF in fall 2003 as an Assistant Professor. Since then, he has established the Nino Research Group (NRG) with a main focus of the investigation of advanced energy materials towards enhancing their efficiency, performance, and sustainability. He received tenure with promotion to Associate Professor in 2008, and was promoted to Professor in 2013. His research at NRG on ceramics, polymers, bio-inspired materials, and their composites has resulted in 120 publications and five patents. Dr. Nino’s current research focus includes optimization and development of advanced functional materials for: (a) energy conversion and storage, (b) high frequency and high temperature electronics, (c) neural networks, and (d) semiconductors and scintillators for radiation detection. He is a recipient of the CAREER and the American Competitiveness and Innovation awards by the US National Science Foundation. In 2009 he received the J Bruce Wagner Jr Young Investigator Award from the Electrochemical Society. In 2014 he received the Fulbright US Scholar Innovation and Technology Award from the US Department of State. In 2016 he served as Expert within the Division of Materials Research at the US National Science Foundation. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Ceramics Society, and a Coordinating Editor for the Journal of Electroceramics.