Alexander A. Balandin is a distinguished professor and vice chair for graduate education at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He directs the Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Laboratory at the MSE department and the Brillouin – Mandelstam Spectroscopy (BMS) Laboratory at The California NanoSystems Institute. Professor Balandin’s expertise is in the physics of materials. Among his research achievements are the investigation of phonon transport and thermal conductivity of graphene and few-layer graphene; the study of the acoustic phonon confinement effects; and the use of low-frequency electronic noise measurements for material characterization. His current research interests include charge-density-wave phenomena and low-dimensional van der Waals materials. Professor Balandin is a recipient of The MRS Medal from the Materials Research Society and The Pioneer of Nanotechnology Award from the IEEE Society for his graphene, phononics, and nanotechnology research. He is an elected Fellow of MRS, APS, IEEE, OSA, SPIE, and AAAS. He serves as a Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Applied Physics Letters.