Yury Gogotsi is a Distinguished University Professor and Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Endowed Chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University (Philadelphia, USA). He is the founding Director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute. He received his MS (1984) and PhD (1986) from Kyiv Polytechnic and a DSc degree from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1995. Together with his students and colleagues, he made principal contributions to the development of materials for electrochemical capacitors and other energy storage devices, discovered MXenes, demonstrated the tuning of structure and porosity of carbide-derived carbons, and developed new processes for the synthesis, surface modification, and purification of nanotubes and nanodiamonds. He also published the first microscopic observation of water inside carbon nanotubes, discovered polygonal nanotubes (graphite polyhedral crystals), and shaped the field of high-pressure surface science. He is recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in Materials Science and in Chemistry, and a Citations Laureate in Physics by Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science).

He has received numerous awards for his research, including the Ceramic Prize from the World Academy of Ceramics, the Materials Research Society (MRS) Medal, the Jan Czochralski Award from the European MRS, the European Carbon Association Award, the American Chemical Society (ACS) Award in the Chemistry of Materials, etc. He has been elected a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors, the World Academy of Ceramics, the European Academy of Sciences, and many professional societies. He holds honorary doctorates from several European Universities.