In this talk I will give an overview of the development of graphene and 2D materials, and describe specific efforts at the Naval Research Laboratory in manipulating graphene for applications ranging from chemical sensing to nanomechanical resonators. Analogous to other electronic materials, defects are a tool to engineer graphene's properties and tune its response to various stimuli. I will present results using chemically modified graphene to not only improve chemical sensing, but also achieve new functionality for electronic systems. In particular, we hybridize graphene via the addition of fluorine atoms and show the subsequent formation of nanoribbons and tunnel barriers exploiting property changes from the fluorine adsorbates. Second, I will present results on the electronic hybridization of stacked graphene layers, where the moiré pattern formed by the relative twist between layers is responsible for new properties of the bilayer system. Finally, I will present results on the influence of chemistry and defects on the properties of graphene nanomechanical systems.