Dr. Jason Fowlkes received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. During graduate school he conducted research at the Laser Processing Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Anthony Pedraza. The focus of his graduate work was nanoparticle self-organization induced by laser- surface interactions. Peripheral projects at the laboratory included pulsed-laser deposition of metallic and oxide thin films and numerical modeling of physical phenomena related to laser processing. In the fall of 2002, he joined Dr. Philip Rack's group at The University of Tennessee in a Post-Doctorate position. In this position, he investigated rare-earth doped, ultraviolet emitting oxide thin films, from processing to characterization. Jason developed a Monte-Carlo-based model to predict electron-stimulated, gas-surface reactions. He also investigated combinatorial materials synthesis for rapid and efficient material characterization. Jason will join the MENT group in 2004.