James F. Shackelford has BS and MS degrees in Ceramic Engineering from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University in Canada, he joined the University of California, Davis, where he is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. For many years, he served as the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the College of Engineering and later as the Director of the University Honors Program that serves students from a wide spectrum of majors. Dr. Shackelford also served as Associate Director for Education for the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology (CBST) and as Faculty Assistant to the Director of the McClellan Nuclear Research Center (MNRC) of UC Davis. He teaches and conducts research in the structural characterization and processing of materials, focusing on glasses and biomaterials. His current focus in teaching is doing so through online technologies. A member of the American Ceramic Society and ASM International, he was named a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society in 1992, was named a Fellow of ASM International in2011, and received the Outstanding Educator Award of the American Ceramic Society in 1996 and the Albert Easton White Distinguished Teacher Award from ASM International in 2019. In 2003, he received a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Academic Senate of the University of California, Davis. In 2012, he received the Outstanding Teaching Award of the College of Engineering at UC Davis, and, in 2014, received an Outstanding Service Award from UC Davis Extension. In 2016, Professor Shackelford received the Inaugural Award for Outstanding Contributions to Materials Education at the North American Materials Education Symposium (NAMES) held at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published over 150 archived papers and books including Introduction to Materials Science for Engineers now in its 9th Edition and which has been translated into Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.