List of Contributors

Francois Beaume is a senior development engineer at Arkema S.A. (France). He graduated in Chemistry from Chimie ParisTech and received a PhD in Polymer Science from ESPCI ParisTech in 1996. He has been with Arkema for over 20 years and is actively involved in Fluoropolymers R&D since 2002.

Tom Bezigian is a graduate of the UMASS-Lowell Plastics Engineering program, where he is now an adjunct professor specializing in film and sheet extrusion. He is the author/editor of TAPPI's Extrusion Coating Manual. He has worked in various capacities in the industry for companies such as Cryovac, Mobil Chemical, James River Corporation, and Felix Schoeller GmbH after which he founded and formed his own specialty film and extrusion laminating business in Syracuse, New York. He now consults and teaches on many aspects of the film and laminating industry, both here in the USA and abroad.

Steven Blazey received his PhD in organic chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 1978 and currently works in A. Schulman's Technology Center in Akron, Ohio, as a Research and Development Engineer developing new products for targeted applications. His career spans 30+ years formulating and compounding polymers. He has a broad knowledge of plastic materials and additives and colorants as well as polymer processing.

Thomas E. Breuer is retired from Witco Chemical/Chemtura, now PMC Biogenix. He was Director of their Research and Applications Laboratory when he retired after 30 years of working in the field of polymer additives and other fatty chemical derivatives. He was involved in technical service for polymer additives worldwide for many years and was author or coauthor of many papers for SPE and other technical organizations.

Jorge O. Bühler-Vidal studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Buenos Aires and at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He joined Union Carbide in 1976 and was at the Bound Brook laboratories from 1978 to 2001. He is currently the Director of Polyolefins Consulting LLC and President of the Petrochemical Consulting Alliance which provides consulting services to global petrochemical and plastics industries.

Ian Burdett graduated from Manchester University Institute of Science and Technology, U.K. with a PhD In Chemical Engineering in 1976. The majority of his working career was spent with Union Carbide Corporation and subsequently The Dow Chemical Company. He worked in the area of Polyolefin Process Technology for 31 years and became Director of Process R&D for Gas Phase Polyolefins. He was awarded Union Carbide's Chairman's Award for development of the UNIPOLT Gas-Phase Process for Polypropylene in 1992.

Thomas I. Butler is retired from The Dow Chemical Company. While at Dow, he was a Technical Leader in Polyolefins and Elastomers R&D, Technical Service and Development. He was responsible for fabrication technology, including blown film processes, extrusion, and coextrusion. Tom graduated from New Mexico State University in Chemical Engineering. He was involved in product and application development for LDPE film, LLDPE film, ethylene acrylic acid copolymer film, and polyolefin plastomers.

Gina Butuc is the Technical Development Manager for Crosslinking Peroxides and Polymer Additives at AkzoNobel, Functional Chemicals. Gina has more than 15 years of experience in the polymer field, either polymer synthesis or application development and polymer testing, ranging from bench chemist to business management. She is the inventor or co-inventor on six U.S. and international patents and the author of four technical articles and a book chapter. Gina holds a MSc in Organic Chemistry from University of Bucharest, Rumania.

Amit K. Chaudhary is a Research Scientist in the Materials & Parts Processing Group at The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI. He joined Dow in 2010 after completing a BSc (Chemistry) and BTech (Chemical Engineering) from The University of Calcutta, India and a PhD (Chemical Engineering) from Michigan State University. He has performed fundamental research in twin-screw extrusion based processes, developed composite materials and processes for application in transportation industry for mass savings, and developed processes and compositions for water borne polymer dispersions for various industrial applications.

Bharat Chaudhary is a Fellow of the Society of Plastics Engineers and a Principal Research Scientist at The Dow Chemical Company. He obtained his PhD and MSc from Imperial College, London, and a BEng from the University of Benin, Nigeria, all in Chemical Engineering. He has 28 years of experience leading research and development in a variety of areas related to polymer modification. Bharat has received several awards for his work and he is author of 33 journal papers and 21 conference/technical presentations, as well as inventor on 63 U.S. granted patents, 28 European granted patents and numerous other patents and patent applications.

Alexander Chudnovsky is a UIC Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Director of the Fracture Mechanics and Materials Durability Laboratory, The University of Illinois at Chicago. He has broad expertise in thermodynamics, fracture mechanics, materials science, stress analysis, probability and statistics. He is widely recognized for his pioneering work in theoretical and experimental fracture mechanics, assessment of materials durability, accelerated testing of lifetime as well as forensic studies.

Tim Clayfield has a BSc and PhD in Polymer Physics from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. He joined Dow in 1989 in Stade, Germany in product and process R&D for the TYRINT group and moved to DuPont Dow Elastomers (DDE) in 1996. At DDE, he became Business Development Manager with projects across a range of markets. Returning to Dow and TS&D in 2005, he worked in the NORDELT EPDM space where he was the Global Application Technology Leader and Product Technology Leader for 8 years. He is currently a Technical Manager at Resinex.

Jeffrey Cogen is a Fellow at The Dow Chemical Company. He has 26 years of experience working with polymers, polymer additives, and polymer compounds. His expertise includes materials for communication and power cables. He is an expert in formulation of polyethylene and in polymer additive mechanisms and applications. He is an inventor on 43 issued U.S. patents and has published more than 40 papers and two invited book chapters. Dr. Cogen received a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Rongjuan Cong received a PhD in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University, Canada in 2001. She joined The Dow Chemical Company in 2005, where she led the development of various new separation techniques to characterize the microstructure of polyolefins and quantify the additives. She is currently a Research Scientist in the Performance Plastics Characterization Group. She has published 40 peer-reviewed papers. She is an inventor of 14 granted patents in new polyolefin products and polyolefin separation science.

Len Czuba is the President of Czuba Enterprises, Inc. a 2001, Chicago-based medical device product development consultancy. He holds 15 U.S. patents and has given more than 100 presentations or seminars and has more than 25 publications. In 2004, Mr. Czuba was one of the 100 "Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry" Notable Persons in the medical device industry. He has been a member of the Society of Plastics Engineers since 1975 and is very active in the Medical Plastics Division. He was the Society's International President during SPE's 2005 - 2006 year and is now a Distinguished, Honored Service, Fellow of SPE.

Samuel Devisme graduated as a Chemical Engineer from INP-ENSIACET, Toulouse, France and received his PhD from École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris in 2006. He is employed by Arkema as the R&D Fluoropolymer Europe Manager and has worked in various areas of technical polymers for 10 years.

Christopher J. B. Dobbin is a Senior Scientist in the Polyethylene Product Research and Development Team at NOVA Chemicals in Calgary, AB, Canada. He completed his PhD in Organic and Polymer Chemistry at the University of Waterloo. In 1998 he joined NOVA Chemicals Corporation as a member of its solution-phase single site catalysis program. Here he has played a fundamental role in the molecular design, development and commercialization of the SURPASST family of dual reactor single site catalyzed ethylene-octene copolymer resins.

Joseph Dooley received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. He is currently the President of JDooley Consulting LLC, an organization that provides consulting services on polymer processing operations, equipment design, and R&D to the plastics industry. Joe retired from The Dow Chemical Company after 35 years in Dow's Research and Development organization. He has published more than 100 technical papers as well as authoring articles in the Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Technology and chapters in textbooks on polymer processing instabilities and coextrusion. Joe is a Fellow of the Society of Plastics Engineers.

Darin L. Dotson obtained his PhD degree in Chemistry from Virginia...