Mark J. Kushner received the BA in Astronomy and the BS in Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1976. His MS and Ph.D. in Applied Physics were received from the California Institute of Technology in 1977 and 1979, respectively, where he was also the Chaim Weizmann Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Dr. Kushner served on the Technical Staffs of Sandia National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before joining Spectra Technology where he was a Director of Electron, Atomic, and Molecular Physics. In 1986, Dr. Kushner joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was the Founder Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Kushner also held appointments in the Departments of Physics, Materials Science and Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Chemical Engineering. He served as Assistant Dean of Academic Programs and Assoc. Dean of Administrative Affairs in the College of Engineering, interim head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and interim head of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. In January 2005, Dr. Kushner joined Iowa State University as Dean of Engineering and as the James Melsa Professor with appointments in the deparments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Chemical Engineering.

Prof. Kushner has published more than 210 journal articles and delivered more than 170 invited symposia presentations on topics related to plasma and thermal materials processing, gas and solid state lasers, pulse power plasmas, chemical lasers, and laser spectroscopy. In his present work, his research group develops computer simulations for low temperature plasmas, plasma chemistry, industrial plasma equipment and plasma surface interactions. In acknowledgement of these works, Dr. Kushner is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, IEEE, Optical Society of America, the American Vacuum Society, the Institute of Physics and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. He has chaired the Gaseous Electronics Conference, the AVS Plasma Science and Technology Division, the AVS Manufacturing Science and Technology Group, and the Gordon Research Conference on Plasma Processing Science. Dr. Kushner is currently on the editorial boards of Plasma Sources Science and Technology, Transactions on Plasma Science, Journal of Physics D, and Plasma Processes and Polymers. He has received the Semiconductor Research Corporation Technical Excellence Award, the Tegal Thinker Award for Plasma Etch Technology, the AVS Plasma Science and Technology Award and the IEEE Plasma Science and Applications Award.