His current work, funded by the National Science Foundation, focuses on biorenewable polymers that offer alternatives to petroleum based plastics. In addition to his responsibilities as a professor, he is an associate of the Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. His honors include the Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, the NSF CAREER Award and the Elsevier Young Composites Researcher Award from the American Society for Composites. Kessler has worked at the forefront of the rapidly emerging field of self-healing polymers and composites for the last decade. Along with his graduate student, Tim Mauldin, he recently published a major critical review of the field, available here. Name: Michael Kessler