Mourad Benamara received the Master's and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering in 1993 from the University of Toulouse III in France. He has held several scientific positions through the ranks of post-graduate researcher to senior research engineer at places including the University of California at Berkeley and the European Synchrotron Facility (Hasylab, Esrf). Since 2008, he has been the senior scientific manager for the materials characterization facility with the Nanoscience and Engineering Institute, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA, with primary focus on materials characterization through transmission and scanning electron microscopies.