Shekhar Garde is the Dean of Engineering and the Elaine S. and Jack S. Parker Chaired Professor 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.  His research focuses on understanding the role of water in biological interactions.  He has published over 100 papers (cited 12,000+ times) and presented 135 invited talks at leading universities and conferences. He won the NSF CAREER Award (2001), Rensselaer Early Career Award (2004), and was the 2011 Robert W. Vaughan Lecturer at CalTech. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (2014) and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2015). 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.