Jim McLeskey received his B.S. in Physics from the College of William and Mary, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia. He spent 5 years as a Generator Design Engineer with Alstom Power and 4 years teaching high school Physics and Chemistry. While at the University of Virginia, he received the ASME Solar Energy Division Graduate Student Research Award.
He joined the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2002 where he established the Energy Conversion Systems Lab (ECSL) – a teaching and research lab devoted to studying various traditional and alternative power generation systems. Current research is focused on organic photovoltaics. The ECSL reported the first polymer solar cell using a water-soluble polymer. Dr. McLeskey earned the 2006 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia as the Rising Star designee.