When someone says"carbon", what do you think of? Coal, right? Or maybe diamonds. But when the nose cone of a space shuttle withstands heat and impact upon reentry into the earth’s atmosphere, that’s carbon, too. When you enjoy the resilience of a graphite tennis racquet or the purity of water filtered by some new system, you may gain insight into the applications of Dr.Robert H. Bragg’s forty-plus years of research on the structure and physical properties of carbon. In his research in x-ray diffraction and small angle x-ray scattering techniques, he collaborated with scientists in several laboratories in the U.S., as well as in Japan, France, Germany, Algeria, and Nigeria. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Bragg was a manager of research in metallurgy at the Research and Development Laboratory of the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, Palo Alto, California. He was responsible for research activity in solidification, metallurgical composites, mechanical and thermophysical properties of refractory compounds, phase diagrams determinations, as well as research in the metallographic, x-ray diffraction, and electron microscope laboratories. Dr. Bragg was a Fullbright Scholar at Olafemi Awolowo University, Ife, Nigeria (1993-4). He also worked with the Collaborative Access Team at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Lab (Fall, 2000).