• Won the 1996 Department of Energy (DOE) Award for Sustained Outstanding Research in Metallurgy and Ceramics. The award was for "Growth of New Metastable Nitride-Based Ceramic Alloys, Superlattices, and Multilayers With Enhanced Properties".
• My work is featured among the 100 most important discoveries of the DOE Office of Science
• 1994, 1997, and 2002 Bunshah Award for the best paper presented at the "International Conference for Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films"
• Did this at the age of 53 (1.8 MB)
• First place (age 40-45 category) at the American Vacuum Society 5K run, Orlando, Florida (1993),

Member of the Bulgarian Physics Society, American Vacuum Society (AVS), American Institute of Physics, Materials Research Society,

AVS activities

• Elected Member of Executive Committee member of the Vacuum Metallurgy Division of AVS (1992-1995 and 1997-2002)
• Member of the Executive Committee of the Surface Engineering Division of the International Union of Vacuum Science, Technique and Application (2000-present)
• Founding Chair of the AVS Distinguished Lecture Series (1998-2000)
• Elected Chair of the Advanced Surface Engineering Division of the American Vacuum Society (2001)
• Chair of AVS Constitution and Bylaws Committee (2004-present)
• Member of the AVS publications committee (2005-present)
• Director, AVS (2007)
• Chair of the Surface Engineering Division of IUVSTA (2007-2009)

Editorships

1993 – present             Member of the Editorial Board of the international journal Vacuum

1995                            Proceedings Editor of International Conference for Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films" (ICMCTF), San Diego

1995                            Guest editor in the international journal of Thin Solid Films

1995                            Guest editor in the international journal of Surface and Coatings Technology

1996                            Proceedings Editor of ICMCTF, San Diego

1996                            Guest editor in the international journal of Thin Solid Films

1996                            Guest editor in the international journal of Surface and Coatings Technology

1999                            Editor of the Proceedings of MRS Symposium Advances in Materials Problem Solving with the Electron Microscope        

2000 - present                         Associate Editor of AVS' Surface Science Spectra

2007 - present             Editor of Elsevier Surface and Coatings Technology

Organization of Scientific Conferences

VEIT - program committee member 1978-2009

PSE - 2006 - 2008

AVS International Symposium

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1992)

Chairman of VMD Program Committee and Session Chairman Session Chairman (1993)

Chairman of VMD Program Committee and Session Chairman Session Chairman (1994)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1995)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1996)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1997)

Session Chairman (1998)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1999)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (2000)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (2001)

Co-chair of Topical Conference on In-Situ Electron Microscopy (2007 and 2008)

International Conference for Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films, San Diego

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1992)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1993)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1994)

Proceedings Editor and Session Chairman (1995)

Proceedings Editor and Session Chairman (1996)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (1997)

Program Chairman (1998)

General Chairman (1999)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (2000)

Member of the Program Committee and Session Chairman (2001)

Symposium Chair (2002-2008)

International Union of Vacuum Science, Technique and Application (IUVSTA)

Member of the international advisory committee of the 11^th IUVSTA International Conference on Thin Films, Cancun, Mexico, August 30- September 3, 1999

Member of the international advisory committee of the IUVSTA Workshop on Selective and Functional Film Deposition Technologies as Applied to ULSI Technology, Mie, Japan, November 19-24, 2000

Chair of IUVSTA HIPIMS Workshop, Belgium, November 2008

Chair of IUVSTA Workshop, Busan, Korea, September 2009

Materials Research Society

MRS Fall meeting: Symposium Organizer, Symposium Q: Advances in Materials Problem Solving with the Electron Microscope (1999)

University of Illinois Conferences

Chair, Surface Analysis 2003- The 25th Annual Symposium on Applied Surface Analysis, University of Illinois, June 3-6, 2003

Chair, Gatan Nanofactory Workshop, University of Illinois, Nov 14-15, 2005

Chair,  MMMS05: Dynamics of Materials Revealed by Electron Microscopy, June 9-10, 2005

European Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering, member of the international advisory committee (2004, 2006, 2008)

Chair The 67th Annual Physical Electronics Conference, University of Illinois, June 19-22, 2007