SPE names 12 fellows

Bethel, Conn. — The Society of Plastics Engineers has named 12 fellows of SPE, honoring members who have made outstanding contributions in plastics science, engineering or management.

The newest fellows will be recognized during SPE's Antec 2016, May 23-25 in Indianapolis.

Candidates for the fellows honor must be sponsored by an SPE division or special interest group. The SPE Fellows Election Committee considers eligible candidates on the basis of a personal history, and written sponsorships from two SPE members. Only 321 members, counting the new inductees, have been named SPE fellow since the professional society established the honor in 1984.

Here are details about the 12 new fellows of SPE:

Rong-Yeu Chang is a noted pioneer, who commercialized academic research into computer-aided engineering software.

Chang is chairman and CEO of Core Tech System Co. Ltd., which makes Moldex3D simulation software products for injection molding. Prior to his current post, he has spent more than 30 years in the research and education of rheology and polymer processing in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. He and his partners founded CoreTech System to serve customers with Moldex and Moldex3D products since 1995. The software for plastics processing has more than 2,500 users around the world, according to SPE.

Bharat Chaudhary is a principal research scientist at Dow Chemical Co. He earned a PhD in chemical engineering and polymer science, and a master of science, from Imperial College in London. He also earned a bachelor in chemical engineering from the University of Benin in Nigeria.

Chaudhary has more than 26 years of experience leading research and development in a range of areas related to polymer modification — particularly sustainable approaches based on blends, functionalization and crosslinking.

He holds 52 U.S. and 23 European patents, SPE said. He has received several awards, written 32 journal papers and given 20 technical presentations.

Stéphane Costeux is an R&D fellow at Dow. He earned a master's of science and R&D engineer diploma from ESPCI in Paris, and holds a PhD in the physics of liquids from the University of Pierre & Marie Curie, also in Paris.

Since joining Dow in 2002, he has worked in rheology, materials science, polymer processing and modeling to the design of commercial high-melt-strength resins and new foam materials. He also helped advance nanocellular foam technology.

Costeux has authored 25 patents and 40 peer-reviewed publications and is a three-time recipient of the Best Paper Award at the SPE Foams Conference

Tom Dunn is a practitioner and manager of flexible packaging product development. He helped replace paper and aluminum foam with barrier-layer plastics for modified atmosphere snack food packaging.

Dunn managed product development for his long-time employer, Printpack Inc., from a narrow product line of $100 million to a broad one of more than $1 billion. He has received awards for lifetime career achievement from the Food Packaging Division of the Institute of Food Technologists, the Polymers and Laminations Division of the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry, and the (U.S.) Packaging Hall of Fame. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Yale University.

Mridula Kapur is a Dow material science fellow in the Packaging and Specialty Plastics Business Unit. Her research spans a variety of areas including: a novel multifunctional analyzer approach for product quality control; catalyst-process-polymer materials science combined with application performance relationships that result in new, enhanced-performance polyethylene products; and the protection of intellectual property.

Kapur also is involved in defining collaborations with universities and external institutes. She has 13 U.S. patents and more than 25 publications and conference presentations

She is a past board member of SPE's Blow Molding Division. Currently, Kapur is an SPE councilor for the Engineering Properties and Structure Division.

 Masaya Kotaki is general manager of Kaneka U.S. Material Research Center at Kaneka Americas Holding Inc. in Texas.

His research career includes roles as an associate professor at the Department of Advanced Fibro-Science in Kyoto Institute of Technology, and a research associate at Singapore's Institute of Materials Research and Engineering.

Kotaki has focused on a fundamental understanding of the relationships between processing, structure and properties, in polymer-based materials. He co-authored four book chapters and more than 100 journal papers.

David Kusuma is vice president of product development and R&D at Tupperware Brands Corp. For the past 15 years he has been responsible for leading innovation, product development and engineering at Tupperware, to develop 150 to 200 new products every year, launched in more than 100 countries.

Before joining Tupperware, Kusuma worked as a global design manager at Exatec LLC, the Detroit automotive glazing joint venture between GE Plastics and Bayer Corp. Prior to that, Kusuma was senior design engineer for Bayer.

He holds four academic degrees.

Stephen McCarthy is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell who joined the university's Plastics Engineering Department in 1984. He founded, and is director of the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2).

McCarthy is the director of the BioPlastics and Medical Plastics Research Center, where he now is doing research into biodegradable polymers and blends. He is the editor of the Journal of Polymers and the Environment.

He earned his bachelor's degree from Southeastern Massachusetts University, a master's in chemical engineering from Princeton University, and a PhD in macromolecular science from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Roger Reinicker recently retired from BASF Corp. after a 41-year career in the plastics and pigments industries. After receiving a master's degree in chemical engineering, he found employment with Hercules, Ciba-Geigy, and finally BASF as a technical fellow.

His career has focused on pigments, especially their use in coloring synthetic fibers and plastics. Reinicker joined SPE in the early 1990s. He was a board member of the Color and Appearance Division for 13 years.

Luyi Sun pioneered the injection stretch blow molding (ISBM) of polyolefins, SPE said. His research has led to more than 10 U.S. and international patents and patent applications.

Sun's innovations helped promote the industrial application of polyolefin ISMB. He also conducted research in composites and nanocomposites. SPE said his patent-pending nanocoating technology has led to significant improvement in barrier and flame-retardant properties.

Sun is the current president of the Chinese American Society of Plastics Engineers. For more than a decade, he has helped organize the International Polyolefins Conference, and other SPE conferences.

Costas Tzoganakis is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and a fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He also is the chief technology officer of Tyromer Inc., a startup company of the university that uses rubber devulcanization technology based on a patented reactive extrusion process developed in his laboratory.

In 2015, Tzoganakis received the Heinz List Award from SPE's Extrusion Division, recognizing his major achievements in reactive processing of polymers.

Karen Xiao is the extrusion technology leader with Celgard LLC, who is responsible for product and process development and improvement in microporous membrane applications.

Before that, she was R&D director for an equipment manufacturing company, responsible for the design and development of multilayer blown film dies and screws.

Xiao current serves on the board of directors of SPE's Extrusion Division, and she was division chair for 2014-2015. She received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Toronto, and her master's and PhD from the University of Waterloo in Canada.