Frank S. Bates is a Regents Professor and a member of the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science department at the University of Minnesota. He received a B.S. in Mathematics from SUNY Albany and M.S. and Sc.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from MIT. Between 1982 and 1989 Bates was a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories then joined the University of Minnesota where he served as department Head from 1999 to 2014. Bates conducts research on a range of topics related to polymers, including the thermodynamics, dynamics, structure, and properties of block polymers, polymer blends and solutions. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.