As the product technology leader for Univation Technologies LLC, a wholly owned Dow Inc. subsidiary, Owendi Ongayi transfers Unipol polyethylene product technology to licensees worldwide. She also supports efforts toward new product development with pilot plant scale-up, validation and commercialization.
"I also travel to clients and offer guidance of how that particular product fits in in different end-use applications in flexible and rigid packaging spaces. Most recently, I took on the role of driving and shaping our product sustainability strategy," said Ongayi, who earned her doctorate in organic chemistry from Louisiana State University.
Ongayi received two industrial awards from the American Chemical Society: the Young Investigator Award in 2013 and Heroes of Chemistry Award in 2014. Internally with Dow, she is a two-time recipient of Dow's sales excellence honors; recipients of this award represent the top 5 percent of Dow's global sales organization.
She is also a primary and co-inventor on 28 patent applications worldwide, with 21 granted applications to date.
In 2015, Ongayi was a technical service and development engineer in sub-Saharan Africa, providing support in food and specialty as well as industrial and consumer packaging.
"I was interested in a new challenge, which involved supporting the growth of Dow's innovative plastic solutions in a highly competitive, fast-paced, growing and dynamic market. These packaging solutions ensured food preservation and safety as well as industrial packaging solutions that allowed for products to move safely across the value chain, from manufacturer to the consumer's home," she said about her greatest achievement. "On a personal level, I was interested in directly contributing to growth in Africa from a packaging solutions perspective. This solution was also recognized with a Gold Award by the 2020 Packaging Innovation Awards competition."
In her spare time, Ongayi mentors young girls from her home country of Kenya with enrolling in different chemistry Ph.D. programs in the United States. "It is super exciting to see that my first mentee is close to completing her program and is ready to defend her thesis," she said.
"As a first-time mom, raising a newborn and trying to navigate through the unknown waters of parenthood, the best advice that I received from my husband is that, with babies, one plus one does not always equal to two, especially with an infant," she said. "This applies to different issues and situations we face in life as well. We must be adaptable and accept different outcomes from the ones that we anticipated."