Robert Hurt is a Professor of Engineering at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and Director of Brown's Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation (IMNI). He received a B.S. from Michigan Technological University and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in chemical engineering. Before coming to Brown in 1994, he held posts at Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany and Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. He currently serves as an Editor of the scientific journal Carbon. He was Technical Program Chair for the International Carbon Conference in 2004 and has served as the Graffin Lecturer of the American Carbon Society. He has received the Silver Medal of the Combustion Institute and the Tau Beta Pi teaching award at Brown. He manages the Laboratory for Environmental and Health Nanoscience at Brown, which focuses on the applications and implications of nanomaterials for human health and the environment. Of special interest in the laboratory are carbon nanomaterials, mercury capture, the materials and chemical basis for nanotoxicology, and emerging concepts for safe nanomaterial formulation.