SPE names annual award winners, Antec speakers

Phil Coats, a professor of the University of Bradford and director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Polymer Science & Technology, will receive the Society of Plastics Engineers' International Award at Antec 2018.

Bethel, Conn.-based SPE also announced that John Beaumont has won the Fred Schwab Education Award. Rajen Patel was named the Research/Engineering Technology award winner.

Antec will be held May 7-10, in conjunction with NPE2018 in Orlando, Fla., at the Orange County Convention Center. SPE will honor its award recipients during the Plastics Hall of Fame induction ceremony May 6 in the Linda Chapin Auditorium at the convention center.

The International Award is SPE's top annual award, presented to honor a person's lifetime achievement. The award is sponsored by SPE's Detroit Section and the Automotive division.

Coates is a physics graduate of Imperial College in London. His PhD thesis was on solid phase deformation processing of polymers. At Antec, Coates will give the plenary speech on May 10, titled “Controlled Structuring of Polymers by Processing: Science, Technology and Applications.

The Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Polymer Science & Technology internationally known. It links research at the universities of Leeds, Bradford, Durham and Sheffield, England.

Coates is also director of the MeDe Innovation, the Centre of Innovative Manufacturing in Medical Devices under the UK's Engineering and Physical Research Council. He also directs a government-sponsored collaboration between the United Kingdom and China. He holds 12 patents, has published more than 300 papers in scientific journals and co-authored nine books.

Beaumont, who will give the plenary speech at Antec on May 9, is founder, president and CEO of the American Injection Molding Institute, located at Beaumont Technologies Inc. in Erie, Pa.

The AIM Institute gives training in injection molding, mold design and material science. Students alternate between coming to the Erie school for one week, then going back to work and doing online courses. Last year the institute became the first to offer an ANSI-accredited plastics certificate.

Beaumont was one of three founding faculty members of Penn State Erie's Plastics Engineering Technology program. He taught there for 25 years, and was program chair from 1999 to 2012.

His plenary speech will address finding and preparing skilled workers.

Patel is an associate research fellow at Dow Chemical Co. in the packaging and specialty plastics technical service and development group. He joined Dow in 1991, initially in polyolefins research and development department.

Patel has helped develop hygiene and medical products, oriented shrink films, collation shrink film, stretch hood films, sealants, cast stretch films, blown film, extrusion coating, tier-layers and barrier layers, elastic films and fibers. He also has done extensive research on metallocene-catalyzed polyolefins.

Patel has co-authored 22 papers for technical journals, written more than 35 articles in conference proceedings and nine chapters in books and encyclopedia.

He is the co-inventor of 51 granted U.S. patents.

Patel is a board member of SPE's Engineering Properties and Structure division. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bombay in 1984. He received a master's degree in 1987 from the University of Tennessee, and a doctorate from the school in 1991. Both advanced degrees were in polymer science and engineering.

Patel's May 8 plenary speech at Antec is titled “The Role of Material Science and Application Development for a Successful Product Launch: Reflections on Metallocene Polyethylene Revolution.”