Dr. Kidd earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana in 2002. After a post-doc at Brookhaven National Lab, he joined the University of Northern Iowa as an assistant professor in 2005. Now an associate professor, Dr. Kidd is currently the chair of the faculty senate at UNI and has served as chair of the physics section of the Iowa Academy of Sciences. He has published over 30 research articles and supervised more than 30 undergraduate research assistants. His current research interests included the electronic properties of layered materials and supervising student projects related to nanocellulose and physical computing.