Professor Kumta obtained his Bachelor of Technology in Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India in 1984 followed by M.S. and Ph.D.degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Arizona in 1987 and 1990, respectively. He joined Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) as an Assistant Professor in 1990 and rose to Full Professor with tenure in 1999 serving on the faculty of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Engineering. At CMU, he initiated the very first hard and soft materials synthesis, processing, fabrication, structure and property characterization research programs targeting electronic packaging, electronic materials, electrocatalysis, energy storage and conversion. In 1998, he spearheaded the tissue engineering initiative leading to the creation of the Bone Tissue Engineering Center (BTEC) in 2003 and the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2004. He joined University of Pittsburgh in 2007 and is currently the Edward R. Weidlein Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor in the Swanson School of Engineering and the School of Dental Medicine. His main research interests are in syntheses, structures, and properties of nanostructured materials for electrochemical, electronic, optical, hard and softtissue engineering, biomineralization, non-viral gene and drug delivery, biosensors, additive manufacturing, and embryonic stem cell applications. He is particularly interested in processing of bioresorbable materials in space and on earth and studying the influence of microgravity on generation of defect free crystals for next generation biomedical devices. Professor Kumta is the 1993 recipient of the NSF Research Initiation Award (RIA) and a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE). He is also a member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He has edited/co-edited 12 books, given more than 225 invited presentations, 601 conference presentations, and is the author and co-author of more than 337 refereed publications. He is credited with generating~$57M in research funding from federal, state, city, national research laboratories, and industrial sponsors. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of Materials Science and Engineering, B, Advanced Functional Solid-State Materials, an international journal by Elsevier, and a position he held from 1999-2017.
