Shekhar Garde is the Thomas R. Farino Jr. ’67 and Patricia E. Farino Dean of the School of Engineering and the Elaine S. and Jack S. Parker Chaired Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  He received his bachelor's (University of Bombay, 1992) and PhD (University of Delaware, 1997) degrees in chemical engineering and was a director's fellow at Los Alamos National Labs (1997-1999), before joining Rensselaer in 1999. At RPI he was promoted to full Professor and named Elaine and Jack Parker Endowed Chair in Engineering in 2006, appointed Department Head of the Howard P. Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2007, and named Dean of Engineering in 2014. His research focuses on understanding the role of water in biological interactions.  He has published over 100 papers (cited 12,500+ times) and presented 150 invited talks at leading universities and conferences. He received the National Science Foundation NSF CAREER Award, Rensselaer Early Career Award, and was the 2011 Robert W. Vaughan Lecturer at CalTech. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Garde co-leads the award-winning Molecularium Project, which has produced digital dome and IMAX movies and a web-based gaming portal for children. In 2011, Garde was honored with the Explore-Discover-Imagine Award by the Children's Museum of Science and Technology in the Capital District (Albany), NY.