Materials and materials education have played an enormous part in the technology advances of the 20th century. Emerging structural, functional, and bio-materials are poised to play an even larger part in the technology of the 21st century. Almost all the "Grand Challenges" identified as the essential technological and social advances for the next three decades have a material dimension. The part materials play in global and national economics and security is, today, so important that governments list the materials they perceive as "critical" and seek to assure access and to identify substitutes or alternatives should their supply chain be disrupted. For these (and many other) reasons, the education of materials-literate engineers and of informed and innovative materials scientists is essential for economic development and growth.