Prof. Anil Virkar is currently the H. Kent Bowen Endowed Chair in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Utah. After his B.Tech. at IIT Bombay, he received his MS in Engineering Mechanics from Louisiana State University, USA, in 1969, and his PhD in Materials Science from Northwestern University, USA, in 1973.

Prof. Virkar was appointed the Director of NSF MRSEC on Plasmonics and Spintronics from 2011-2013. He was appointed the Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in 2007 and was the Chair, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, between 1998- 2011.

He has consulted for numerous companies over the years, including Hercules, Dow Chemical, Ford, Allied-Signal, Texas Instruments, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NGK, Praxair, PNNL, Apache Oil, and several small companies.

He was one of the founding members of Ceramatec and a Co[1]founder of Materials and Systems Research, Inc. (MSRI), both in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is a Board Member of Versa Power Systems (VPS), an Illinois-based company formed for the commercialization of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology.

He has received several awards and accolades over the years. These include receiving the Best Teaching Award in the College of Engineering (1991); Fellow of The American Ceramic Society (1992); Ross Coffin Purdy Award of the American Ceramic Society (1993); MSE University of Utah Alumni Award, Fellow of The Electrochemical Society (2006); Outstanding Achievement Award of the High-Temperature Division of The Electrochemical Society (2006); Utah Governor’s Medal of Science & Technology (2006); Election to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) (2007); appointed Distinguished Professor (2007); elected Fellow of ASM International (2010), James Mueller Award of the American Ceramic Society (2013); John Jeppson Award of the Am. Ceram. Soc. (2013); Outstanding Achievement Award, Northwestern University, Materials Science and Engineering (2015); elected Fellow of National Academy of Inventors (2016); elected Distinguished Lifetime Member (DLM) of the American Ceramic Society (2021); and Founding Member, Utah Academy of Engineering and Science (Utah[AES) (2021).

He has 40+ patents to his name, over 250 refereed publications, five book chapters, 150+ conference presentations and papers in symposia, and has supervised over 25 Post-Doc Fellows.

He has been a reviewer for various journals and federal agencies, an associate editor for the Journal of the American Ceramic Society (for eight years), an organizer of symposia at the ACerS meetings, was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Colorado School of Mines MRSEC, and more.