SPE gives out top awards

Indianapolis — Samuel Kenig, dean of engineering and head of graduate studies in plastics engineering at Shenkar College in Israel, received the International Award, the top honor from Society of Plastics Engineers, on May 22 in Indianapolis.

SPE honored Kenig and three other distinguished individuals at an awards gala ton the eve of the Annual Technical Conference, Antec 2016, at the JW Marriott Indianapolis. I'll be covering Antec for Plastics News this week, so if you see me, make sure to say hello.

In short remarks, Kenig thanked colleagues and family, and he noted that one of his mentors is a previous International Award winner: Musa Kamal, professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal.

The International Award honors a single individual every year for a lifetime of achievement in plastics.

Other top awards went to: 

Frank Macher, an automotive plastics expert and chairman and CEO of Continental Structural Plastics Inc., who won the Business Management Award. Macher joked that when he started in plastics, everyone was talking about "The Graduate," but he was mostly interested in Anne Bancroft, who played Mrs. Robinson.

Macher also noted that Plastic Man turns 75 years old this year ... and so does Macher.

"Plastic Man was amazing. He could stretch and do amazing things because he was so elastic," Macher said.

Tim Osswald, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Polymer Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin, picked up the Fred E. Schwab Education Award. Osswald is a native of Colombia, and has a highly globalist perspective as an expert on polymer processing.

Osswald said he was "incredibly touched" to be honored, especially for teaching. "Education, to me, is the most important thing," he said.

Gregory Campbell won the Research/Engineering Technology Award. He was a senior researcher at General Motors Corp. who, during a 13-year career there, worked on key research programs related to more usage of plastics in cars, and moved to academia to become a chemical engineering faculty member at Clarkson University.

Campbell thanked the SPE Automotive Division the SPE Detroit Section for their role in the awards dinner.

SPE gave out more information on each awards winner:

Samuel Kenig, in his PhD research from 1968 through 1972, was the first to study, model and simulate the complete injection molding process, according to SPE. His thesis inspired many commercial simulation software packages for injection molding.

Before joining academia, Kenig held several industrial research and development positions. In 1974, he joined the Research Authority of the Israel Ministry of Defense, and rose to become managing director of the Materials and Processes division from 1986-1991.

He established, in 1992, the Israel Plastics & Rubber Center (IPRC) Ltd., aimed at advancing the technical and scientific infrastructure of the rubber and plastics industries. He served as its managing director until May 2014. Concurrent with his industrial work, Kenig was involved with academic affairs for more than 30 years.

Kenig became a full professor in 2000, and was named deal of engineering faculty in 2007. In 2009, he established the Department of Plastics Engineering at Shenkar College, and was appointed the department head. Since its inception, the college has graduated more than 450 students with a bachelor's degree in plastics engineering.

In 2010, Kenig established a joint PhD program in plastics engineering with the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

His R&D work has focused on nanocomposites since 2000, leading to four patents and numerous technical publications. The Italian company Nanto Ltd. commercialized the patents to develop corrosion resistant paints containing nanoclays; they are sold under the trade name Nanto Protective Paints. Nanto also has come out with fire-retardant polymers based on nanoclays, SPE reports.

A member of SPE since 1969, Kenig has written more than 150 papers and has delivered more than 120 lectures around the world. He has 16 patents.

Frank Macher is an expert in strategic and business planning, advanced technologies especially automotive composites, product development and manufacturing. He has more than 45 years of automotive experience.

Before Continental Structural Plastics, Macher was CEO and president of Collins & Aikman, chairman and CEO of Federal-Mogul Corp. and president and CEO of ITT Automotive. He also worked for 30 years at Ford Motor Co., holding several key positions including vice president of the Automotive Components Group, a huge operation and predecessor to Visteon Corp., SPE reports.

While at Ford's Automotive Components Group, Macher expanded the company's electronics operations on a global basis. He also established five joint ventures in China.

During the early part of his career, Macher was involved in several automotive plastics breakthrough innovations, including the polyethylene fender liner on the Lincoln Town Car in the early 1970s; developing a two-shot molding process for making rear taillight lenses in 1972; a one-piece, all-plastic instrument panel on the 1975 Cougar; and an E-beam-cured paint for plastic instrument panels, with Norm Brennan, a worker at Ford.

Other major advancements include a blow molded gas tank on the 1979 Mustang — as well as other parts that have structural, vibration-proofing and noise-dampening properties.

Macher earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Kettering University, and an MBA from Michigan State University. He won SPE's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

Tim Osswald, a native of Colombia, received his bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines, and his PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the area of polymer processing.

Osswald spent two and a half years at the Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV) in Aachen, Germany, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow.

He received the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award, as well as the 2001 VDI-K-Dr. Richard-Escales-Preis. Later he was named an honorary professor at both the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, and the National University of Colombia.

Osswald's research focuses in particular in the areas of fiber orientation, fiber density and fiber length distributions. His research relates to both the composites and the paper industries, SPE said.

Osswald has published more than 200 papers, several Hanser technical books — which have been translated in seven foreign languages. He also is the series editor of Plastics Pocket Power, from Hanser, which currently includes six books, and is the editor for the Americans of the Journal of Polymer Engineering, as well as the English-language editor for the Journal of Plastics Technology.

Gregory Campbell, who got a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Maine in his hometown area, joined General Motors' research laboratory in 1968. Ten years later, he became senior staff research engineer, working on plastics.

Then he joined Mobil Chemical, and began managing the polymer process research and technical service lab in 1981. At Mobil, he focused on efforts on processing of commodity plastics, especially in the areas of film, foam and molded parts.

In 1984, he became a chemical engineer at Clarkson. During his years at the university, he held several administrative posts including department chair, chief informational officer and dean of engineering.

Campbell's research focused on processing and the interrelationships of processing and properties in extrusion, injection molding, blown film, foams, liquid crystal polymers and fuel cells.

Campbell has published more than 170 research papers, and directed 27 graduate students.

Since 2001, he has served on the board of SPE's Extrusion Division. Campbell also has been active in several other leadership positions at SPE.

Campbell has retired from Clarkson and now lives in Maine.

SPE Fellows

SPE also named 12 fellows on May 22, honoring members who have made outstanding contributions in plastics science, engineering or management.

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.