PITTSBURGH—The ACS Rubber Division, with the opening if its 2021 International Elastomer Conference, announced the winners for the 2022 Science and Technology Awards. These awards, given during the Spring Technical Meeting April 25-28 in Warrensville Heights, Ohio, honor those throughout the industry whose work has left a lasting impression on rubber technologies and professionals.
The 2022 award winners are:
Fernley H. Banbury Award
In recognition of being an "inventor or developer of innovative, commercially accepted production equipment, control systems, and instrumentation widely used in the manufacture of rubber or rubber-like articles," industry pioneer Gerald Potts has been named the recipient of the Fernley H. Banbury Award for 2022.
The Fernley H. Banbury award is sponsored by Ravenna, Ohio-based testing firm Ace Products and Consulting L.L.C.
"Dr. Potts fits this criterion perfectly," said Will Mars, president and founder of Findlay, Ohio-based Endurica L.L.C., in his nomination letter of Potts. "Systems invented and developed by Dr. Potts are in use at top 10 tire and automotive manufacturers worldwide, as well as with third-party testing and research organizations."
Potts is perhaps best known as the founder, president and chief technical officer of TMSI, where he worked from 1991-2016. TMSI is a major provider of measurement solutions in the tire and automotive industry markets.
Potts also is renowned for his work with GRP Dynamics L.L.C.; Firestone; and as an adjunct professor with the University of Akron and Kansas State University, one of his alma maters.
He has worked extensively (while employed with MTS) with the "Flat Trac" system, measuring tire force and moment behavior, and as a consultant to General Motors with that company's high-speed tire uniformity testing systems.
In 2014, Potts received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Tire Technology International in Cologne, Germany, in 2014. He is the owner of nine patents for tire testing system technology and has authored more than 20 technical publications.
He presented the Robert William Thompson Lecture—the keynote address—at the 2020 Tire Technology Conference in Hanover, Germany, "The Vehicle Revolution Travels on Tires."
Potts also served as Tire Society president from 2018 to 2020 and as chairman of the original ASTM F-9 Committee—in many ways a precursor to the Tire Society—on tires.
His achievements have had a "significant and continuing impact on the development of rubber industry production equipment and instrumentation," according to Mars.
"Potts has made significant contributions to testing methods, and test machines, that further the development of rubber industry production equipment and instrumentation," said Cedric Mousseau, lead engineer for tire modeling at General Motors, in his nomination letter for Potts. "I believe (his) long list of accomplishments makes him worthy of Fernley Banbury award."
"Despite his breadth and depth of knowledge in measurement and control systems of tire vibrations, force and moment, he has always stood out in my interactions with him over the years for his humility and generous advice," said Maria Ellul, retired from ExxonMobil Chemical Co. as a principal scientist.
The Fernley H. Banbury Award is named for an English scientist and engineer who invented the Banbury mixer, the iconic mixing machine used in a range of industries, from elastomers to plastics and chemicals.
Sparks-Thomas Award
Baochun Guo, a professor at the South University of Technology's (SCUT) Department of Polymer Materials and Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2022 Sparks-Thomas Award.
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.
Throughout his career, Guo has made significant contributions to rubber science and technology, specifically with his research on rubber with low hysteresis and the rubbers crosslinked by dynamic bonds.
Among his achievements is the development of new technologies that effectively reduce the hysteresis of rubbers. The in situ catalytic interfacial silanization, for instance, is proposed to reduces the dosage of silane and improve the dynamic performance of tires.
Guo's work with introducing sacrificial bonds into the rubber network—which allows rubbers not only to possess mechanical performance competitive to those for particulate-reinforced rubbers, but also exhibit tunable functions, such as damping and self-healing properties—has earned recognition.
His work has earned a number of accolades, including the prestigious National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (NSFC).
The Sparks-Thomas award recognizes the outstanding scientific contributions and innovations within the rubber industry. Given to a young scientist, engineer and technologist, the award perpetuate the memory of William J. Sparks and Robert M. Thomas, chemists, who developed butyl rubber. The award is sponsored by Endurica L.L.C.
George S. Whitby Award for Distinguished Teaching & Research
Changwoon Nah, a professor of Polymer-Nano Science and Engineering at Jeonbuk National University in South Korea, will receive the 2022 George Stafford Whitby Award for Distinguished Teaching & Research award.
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.
In 1999, Nah joined the Jeonbuk National University, where he focused on the education and research for rubbery nanocomposites and functional applications using rubber elasticity. Among his achievements are proposing a fully-exfoliated clay rubber nanocomposites using liquid isoprene treatment and latex blending technology; and suggesting a mechanism of how the platelet nanoclays can improve the barrier performance and fracture behavior of rubber nanocomposites.
Throughout his career, Nah has published nine book chapters and 220 scientific papers. He has supervised more than 80 master's. and doctorate students.
The George Stafford Whitby Award for Distinguished Teaching & Research is given in memory of Whitby, who served as head of the rubber laboratory at the University of Akron and was, for years, the only individual in the U.S. to teach rubber chemistry. Cabot Corp. sponsors the award.
Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award
Krishna Venkataswamy, executive vice president at Star Thermoplastics, 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.
With more than 70 U.S. and worldwide patents, published journal papers, conference papers and trade magazine articles, Venkataswamy is the recipient of this year's Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award. The award is sponsored by Renkert Oil L.L.C.
Venkataswamy also is an independent director of the board of Zylog ElastocOMP, and he's held leadership positions at PolyOne and GLS Corp. and global technology roles at GAF Corp. and Advanced Elastomer Systems L.P.
He graduated from Case Western Reserve University in 1985 with his Ph.D. in polymer science and engineering after earning his master's from the University of Florida and his bachelor's from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He also has received several awards for his accomplishments in the rubber science industry, including the 2012 Annual Award in Research and Engineering Technology" from the Society of Plastic Engineers and the 2006 Fellow Award from the SPE, among others.
Anil K. Bhowmick
Melvin Mooney Award
Anil K. Bhowmick is the recipient of 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.
Bhowmick is a research professor for the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. He previously was the professor of Eminence and Inae chair professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India, as well as the founder director at the Indian Institute of Technology in Patna, India.
He is a member of the editorial board of the eight international research journals; associate editor of Rubber Chemistry and Technology, a journal published by the ACS Rubber Division; guest editor of Frontiers issue 2019, Rubber Chemistry and Technology; and co-editor of the special issue of Polymer and Composite Characterization of the Journal of Macromolecular Science (USA).
He is the recipient of 14 awards in the rubber industry—including two from the Rubber Division—and has 21 patents in India, Germany, Japan and the U.S., more than 590 research papers, seven books published from the U.S. and United Kingdom, two co-authored books from the U.S. and 26 chapters in international books.
Lion Elastomers sponsors the Melvin Mooney award.
Bioelastomer Award
Kristi L. Kiick, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and distinguished professor in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the University of Delaware, has been named the 2022 winner of the Bioelastomer Award from the ACS Rubber Division.
The Bioelastomer Award recognizes significant contributions to the advancement of biomaterials in the field of rubber science and technology. It is sponsored by Versalis Americas Inc.
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."
"Dr. Kiick has utilized state-of-the art gene editing and the protein synthesis machinery of E-coli to incorporate non-traditional amino acids, crosslinking units and biologically active units into resilin-like polypeptides to engineer both the mechanical and biological properties of the matrix for applications in regenerative medicine," said Roderic P. Quirk, professor emeritus of polymer science at the University of Akron.
Kiick's has published more than 178 papers in professional journals, with her works having been cited 10,400 times.
Kiick has received 24 patents, the Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award, the DuPont Young Professor Award, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award and the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
She has been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and is a fellow of both the Association for the American Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Inventors.
Kiick was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom in 2020.
Her efforts have centered on collagen—developing a fundamental understanding on the unique phase behavior of protein- and peptide-based materials and how this information can be exploited for benefit in cardiovascular disease, wound-healing, tendon repair and treatment of various arthroses.
"She has been recognized at all levels for research excellence, leadership, service and mentoring," said Matthew L. Becker, Hugo L. Blomquist Distinguished University Professor at Duke University, in his nomination letter for Kiick. "Dr. Kiick is now at the stage of her career where she is starting to translate these innovations into pre-clinical and clinical applications."
These applications include approaches to vocal fold repair and regeneration and vascular regeneration.
Rubber News wants to hear from its readers. If you want to express your opinion on a story or issue, email your letter to Editor Bruce Meyer at [email protected].