Diyar Talbayev was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 1977. He received the B.S. degree (summa cum laude) in applied mathematics and physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow, Russia, in 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in physics from Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, in 2004. He is an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Prior to coming to Yale, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies at Los Alamos National Laboratory and in the Department of Applied Science, College of William and Mary. In his research, he pursues the study of low energy electrodynamics in complex materials using optical spectroscopic and ultrafast time-resolved techniques. His research interests include correlated electron metals, insulators, and superconductors, magnetic and multiferroic materials, and semiconductor nanostructures. Dr. Talbayev is a member of the American Physical Society.