ACS Rubber Division honors S&T award winners

WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS, Ohio—The ACS Rubber Division passed out its Science & Technology Awards at its recent Spring Technical Meeting, honoring eight individuals, including the two Michelin retirees who jointly received the Charles Goodyear Medal.

Steve Cron and Tim Rhyne, the duo who led the development of Michelin's Tweel non-pneumatic tire technology, shared the Charles Goodyear Medal, the Rubber Division's highest honor.

The two collectively spent 70 years at Michelin, with Rhyne working there from 1978 to 2017, when he retired as a senior research fellow. Cron's career at the tire maker began in 1991 and he retired in 2021.

Rhyne and Cron, in 1997, began informally working on various structural concepts for non-pneumatic tires. That led to the invention of the Tweel, which generates about $25 million in annual sales for Michelin from a variety of off-road applications.

The association gave out other awards during a banquet at the spring meeting in Warrensville Heights.

Anil K. Bhowmick received the Melvin Mooney Distinguished Technology Award for his contributions in the rubber science industry, including polymer nanocomposites, thermoplastic elastomers, sustainable materials and technology, adhesion science, failure and degradation of rubbers, and rubber technology. He is a research professor for the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston.

Changwoon Nah, a professor of Polymer-Nano Science and Engineering at Jeonbuk National University in South Korea, was honored with the George Stafford Whitby Award for Distinguished Teaching & Research. Nah began his career with Kumho Tire, working at the company's R&D Center from 1985 to 1998. There he focused on compound designs that improved rolling resistance and traction through molecular designing of chain ends of synthetic rubbers. He is credited with playing a major role in the development of Kumho energy-optimizing tires.

Baochun Guo, a professor at the South University of Technology's (SCUT) Department of Polymer Materials and Engineering, was the recipient of the Sparks-Thomas Award, which is given to a young scientist, engineer and technologist. Guo, a graduate of Northwestern Polytechnical University, completed his Ph.D. in materials science at SCUT in 2001 and joined the Department of Polymer Materials and Engineering as a full-time professor in 2009. Prior to that, he worked as a research assistant in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Hong Kong.

Krishna Venkataswamy, president and CEO of Innovation Development Insights, received the Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award during the Rubber Division's spring meeting. He has contributed to the technology of thermoplastics elastomers for more than 30 years, where he has made significant strides in the commercialization of the TPE industry for consumer, health care, consumer electronics, industrial and automotive applications across North America, Europe and Asia.

Gerald Potts, founder of TMSI, was honored with the Fernley H. Banbury Award. TMSI is a major provider of measurement solutions in the tire and automotive industry markets. Systems invented and developed by Potts are in use at top 10 tire and automotive manufacturers worldwide, as well as with third-party testing and research organizations.

Kristi Kiick, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and a distinguished professor in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the University of Delaware, received the Bioelastomer Award, which recognizes significant contributions to the advancement of biomaterials in the field of rubber science and technology. Kiick has advanced bioelastomers with her development of a palette of useful biomaterials based on resilin, a rubber-like protein found in insects that exhibits "low-stiffness, high-extensibility and efficient energy storage."

The Rubber Division will announce the 2023 S&T award winners during the International Elastomer Conference, being held in October in Knoxville, Tenn.