Prof. Hafner got his B.S. in Physics from Trinity University in 1993. He earned his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1998 under Richard Smalley for work on carbon nanotubes, and pursued postdoctoral studies at Harvard University with Charles Lieber. He returned to Rice in 2001 to join the faculty where his lab studies nanophotonics and interfacial biology. Hafner was named a Beckman Young Investigator in 2002, and won the Norman Hackerman Award for Chemical Research from the Welch Foundation in 2011. He is currently a Professor of Physics and Astronomy and of Chemistry. Hafner is a Member of Scientia at Rice and the Magister of Jones College. He has taught freshman and sophomore physics for the past fourteen years and was a founding member of Rice’s Center for Teaching Excellence. He is on a quest to find a lecture demonstration that will get him fired.