Dr. Narottam Bansal is a Senior Research Scientist in the Ceramics Branch, Materials and Structures Division, NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH. After receiving his Ph. D. in 1973, he held post-doctoral research assignments in Canada and USA. He has carried out research in a number of areas: solid oxide fuel cells, thermal and environmental barrier coatings, fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites for high-temperature structural applications in turbine engines, high-temperature superconductors, sol-gel and combustion processing, refractory glass-ceramics, kinetics of phase transform...