Catalin Picu received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania, in 1989. He then joined the faculty of the same institution working in the area of Solid Mechanics. In 1992 he entered the PhD program in Applied Mechanics at Dartmouth College from where he obtained his degree in 1995. Shortly after, Dr. Picu joined the Solid Mechanics group at Brown University where he worked until coming to RPI as a faculty member in August 1998.