Jim P. Zheng joined the faculty of the UB Department of Electrical Engineering in Spring 2020 as SUNY Empire Innovation Professor. He had been the faculty of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Florida A&M University and Florida State University from 1997 to 2020, as Associate Professor, Professor, and Sprint Eminent Scholar Chair Professor. Prior to this, he had been worked at Army Research Laboratory from 1992 to 1997. He is the recipient of National Academy of Inventors Fellow, National Research Council Fellow, Army Research & Development Achievement Award, NASA Faculty Research Award, and Progress Energy Professional Development Award. He has published more than 180 articles in scholarly journals, and 140 papers in conference proceedings in the fields of energy storage, fuel cells, nano-sensors, photonics, and thin film growth, and been awarded 23 patents, and 5 patents have been licensed by private companies.