The 2025 Charles Goodyear Medal, the technical association's most prestigious honor, will go to Gert Heinrich. Most recently a senior research professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Dresden, Heinrich has authored over 850 scientific papers on a variety of topics, according to the Rubber Division. He also has worked as a senior research scientist and head of the materials research department at Continental A.G. in Hanover, Germany, and as the director for the Leibnez Institute for Polymer Research Dresden.
The medal, sponsored by HF Group, "honors individuals for outstanding invention, innovation or development which has resulted in a significant change or contribution to the nature of the rubber industry," the division said. The Rubber Division cited Heinrich's "outstanding significant contributions to research in rubber and polymer science, such as statistical-mechanical and constitutive continuum theory, molecular dynamics, friction theory and fracture mechanics" as grounds for his selection as the 2025 Charles Goodyear medalist.
Along with his wide-reaching impact through his authorship, Heinrich has been a trailblazer in the realm of rubber research. Perhaps his career's greatest achievement, the Rubber Division said, has been his continued research on a holistic approach to rubber science and technology, which led to his founding of the field of "rubberiomics," named after the similar field of materiomics.
"His most notable achievements are in the field of teaching and research on polymeric and elastomeric materials," the Rubber Division said. "With the aim of developing viable concepts for the technological implementation and application of new materials, Professor Heinrich contributed significantly in physical, chemical and engineering aspects and in the production and processing of rubber, elastomers and polymers."