Mauro, who joined the Penn State faculty in 2017, is an internationally recognized materials and glass science expert and co-inventor of LionGlass. Prior to joining Penn State, Mauro worked for 18 years as an industrial research scientist at Corning Incorporated, where he was co-inventor of three iterations of Corning Gorilla Glass, a thin, durable, touch sensitive cover glass that has been used in billions of cellphones, tablets and touch-screen devices worldwide.

Mauro was appointed head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 2025 and prior to that served as chair of the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Materials Science and Engineering and associate head for graduate education in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Mauro is a fellow of the American Ceramic Society, the Society of Glass Technology and the National Academy of Inventors. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and an elected academician in the World Academy of Ceramics. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society. He received the EMS Paul F. Robertson Award for Research Breakthrough of the Year in 2020 for his pioneering work in decoding the “glass genome” — the code to design new functional glasses.

Mauro earned a bachelor of science in glass engineering science and a bachelor of arts in computer science, both in 2001, and a doctorate in glass science in 2006, all from Alfred University.