Narottam P. Bansal, PhD, is Senior Research Scientist at the NASA Glenn Research Center, where he has conducted research on glasses, ceramics, and composites since 1985. In addition to publishing more than 230 papers, Dr. Bansal holds seven patents and is the author or editor of five books and 32 conference proceedings. J. P. Singh is the editor of Advances in Ceramic Matrix Composites XI: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of The American Ceramic Society, Baltimore, Maryland, USA 2005, published by Wiley. Waltraud M. Kriven is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Kriven received her Ph.D. in 1976 in Solid State Chemistry from the University of Adelaide in South Australia and her B.Sc. (Honors) and Baccalaureate degrees in Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Biochemistry from the same institute. She is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of phase transformations in inorganic compounds and their applications in structural ceramic composites. She has authored or co-authored over 240 research publications, and fourteen books to date.