Gaurav Kumar has over 20 years of experience in the polymer industry, wherein he has held various positions in Marketing, Sales and Technical groups. He graduated with a degree in Polymer Technology, and a MBA in marketing from NIBM (India). In his latest role he is associated with Avient Corporation, which he joined in year 2016, and is currently responsible for its TPE portfolio in EMEA. Before Avient, he spent 13 years in Application Development, Key account management, Product Development and Technical services at other Plastic Manufacturers.
Lennaert Klerk obtained a MSc in both Physics and Chemistry and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Utrecht University. Following this he made the move to Industry, first working at the resins business of DSM, then moving to AkzoNobel, where he had several roles first in the corporate analytical department, and later in a corporate open innovation role. In 2019 he joined Kraton as the European technical manager for Specialty polymers and since 2022 he is the regional technical manager for all Kraton Polymer activities in Europe. activities in Europe.
Edwin Verdurmen has a Master’s Degree in Chemical Technology and a PhD in Polymer Science from Eindhoven University of Technology.
With over 20 years of experience in Marketing and Sales in the Polymer industry, his functional experience includes Research, Technical Marketing, Business Development and Business Management. This experience also includes Plastomers and Elastomers, PE & PP in both commodity and specialty resins, Healthcare, Compounds, and Masterbatch Carrier resins.
His employment history is as follows:
Borealis Plastomers B.V.
Geleen, The Netherlands, 2013 to present.
Held a number of roles in Business Management, Sales and Marketing. Currently, Marketing Manager Concentrates & Polymer Modifiers for Advanced Products.
DEXPlastomers (JV DSM & ExxonMobil Chemical)
Geleen, The Netherlands, 1997 to 2013.
Held a number of roles in Product Development, Technical Marketing, Business Development. Business Manager DEXPlastomers from 2006 to 2013.
Broad range of scientific, application development, marketing and business management responsibilities related to Plastomer materials.
DSM
Geleen, The Netherlands, 1993 to 1997.
Held a number of Research & Development roles in DSM Research, PolyOlefin sector.
Borealis trademark is a trademark controlled by Borealis AG
Patrick Ellis has over 60 years experience in the global plastics and rubber industries, where he has worked for a number of multinational polymer producers, including Shell Chemicals, General Electric Plastics, Monsanto Europe, Hercules Europe, Himont, Neste Chemicals and RTP Company. He has been an independent consultant for the last 28 years and has carried out a number of projects for major multinational concerns, such as ExxonMobil, Amoco and General Electric Plastics, as well as European compounders such as Dub Plastiques, British Vita, Polytechs, AlphaGary, Polyplast Mueller, Avient and RTP France.
In addition to the above Patrick Ellis has assisted in the setting up of several compounding operations. He has completed a number of global market studies for Smithers on TPEs and silicone elastomers. He has also written several articles as well as having given presentations on TPEs and silicone elastomers for Smithers.
I studied chemistry at the University of Potsdam, Germany, from 2000 to 2006, with a focus on synthetic organic chemistry. During that time I turned my attention to material science and started my Ph.D. at the University of Potsdam under the supervision of Prof. A. Laschewsky, which I completed in 2010 with studies related to amphiphilic block copolymers. I then joined the group of Prof. S. Armes at University of Sheffield, UK, to conduct postdoctoral studies devoted to next-generation polymer dispersions. Back in Germany, I started working as a scientist in the department of polymer synthesis at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research (IAP) in 2012. While working at IAP I design and conduct research focusing on polymer dispersions and bio-based polymers.
Patrick finished his studies (BSc) in mechanical engineering and business economics / marketing at the universities of Breda and Tilburg, the Netherlands, being the beginning of his 34 years career within the plastics industry. Starting at former GE Plastics (engineering thermoplastics) in different technical and business development functions he continued as a project manager at Helvoet BV in the Netherlands managing business development projects for large multinational accounts. In 2003 he joined LyondellBasell, being tasked with commercial pan-European responsibilities in a large variety of application segments within the automotive, building & construction and infrastructure industries. In this role profound experience was gained with business development of PB-1 materials. Since 2017 he assumed the role of PB-1 Marketing Manager, being responsible for strategy development and execution of the global PB-1 businesses in pipes, flexible packaging and other specialty applications.
Since October 2022, Research Associate at the Institute of Product Engineering at University Duisburg-Essen
-Since October 2022, Master of Science in Industrial Engineering, University of Duisburg-Essen
-September 2021 to September 2022, Master Thesis at Covestro
François DE BUYL received his PhD in Organometallic Chemistry from University of Brussels, Belgium (1991) and an MSc in Advanced Material Sciences from University of Surrey, UK (2003). He joined Dow Corning Europe in 1991 and worked on various silicone based materials development and applications, such as, e.g., silicone sealant & adhesives, organosilanes, thermoplastics and (silicone) rubbers reinforcements, and coatings, before joining the Dow Silicones Belgium Silicone Elastomers TS&D team back in 2011, helping for instance lighting and optical companies (Tier 1 and OEMs) using silicone in their LED lamps and luminaires designs, with products such as, e.g., optical moldable silicones, optical encapsulants, thermal interface materials, adhesives and coatings for lighting fixtures protection and assembly.
2005 - 2010: M.Sc. Chemistry (Universtit´a degli studi di Milano) 2010 - 2017: Different research position in Germany (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster and Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg) Since 2017: ALLOD Werksoff GmbH & Co. KG
Dr. Pierre Furtwengler joined Renault engineering team in 2018 and is in charge of polymer material development and prescription for under bonnet applications. He is know technical polymer specialist for Renault Group. He obtained his PhD at ECPM (Strasbourg) in the BioTeam in renewable polyol synthesis from sorbitol and PU foams formulation. He received the 2018 best PhD award from French Plastic Engineer Society (SFIP).
Dr. Michael Backer studied chemistry at the Technical University of Munich and at the Humboldt University at Berlin where he obtained his PhD in 1999 in Organometallic (organosilicon) Chemistry.
He joined Dow Corning in 2000 as senior chemist. Today as Senior Research Scientist at DOW Silicone Deutschland GmbH, he is leading development activities of new LSR technologies, as well as supporting commercialization of these products into various markets. His functional experience includes chemical synthesis, material science and industrial applications of silicones in Consumer and Mobility & Transportation Market.
He is responsible for Global Product Line Management of Sealing Products at Aptiv.
Thomas joined Aptiv in August 1989 as a Product Engineer for Electronic.
He Holds an Diploma for Electric Engineering / Communication Electronics from
University of Applied Science in Bochum , Germany
Thomas owned multiple different Positions and Roles in Aptiv.- Electronic development, Advanced Engineering, Technology Development, Electrical System Architecture and Tool Development
_1.jpg?ext=.jpg){kind=logo}
Beate Ganter studied Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen and did her PhD in the field of metalorganic complexes. In 1998 she joined the Bayer AG (later GE Bayer Silicones, today Momentive Performance Materials) as R&D Chemist for the development of Heat Cured Rubbers. She held various positions in Marketing and Application Development in the field of Liquid Silicone and Heat Cured Rubbers. In 2021 she took over the position of the Regional Marketing Manager for Healthcare in the EMEA region.
Dr.-Ing Vinzenz Nienhaus studied mechanical engineering at the University of Darmstadt and wrote his PhD about rheology and processing conditions of filament based 3d-printing of biopolymers. He worked on numerous projects in the medical, chemical and biology fields and co-founded the company BIOVOX in 2020. As the CTO, he is responsible for all technical aspects of the bioplastic product range of BIOVOX and takes care of customer implementation, testing and safety.
.jpg?ext=.jpg)
Kay Varnhorn joined Asahi Kasei Europe in July 2022 and is responsible for the sales and marketing of TPEs. He has over 20 years' experience in the elastomer industry in a variety of technical and commercial roles. Prior to joining Asahi Kasei, he worked for Japanese fluoropolymer manufacturer Daikin Chemicals as European Business Manager for Fluoroelastomers (FKM) and Polymer Process Aids (PPA). He started his career on the elastomer side of the former Bayer AG, now Lanxess, (Arlanxeo) in various technical positions such as Technical Marketing Manager for Elastomers and TPEs. Kay holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from a University of Applied Sciences and has completed postgraduate studies in elastomers at DIK (Hannover).
Pacôme, french, sport passionate and food lover. I wish to be part of the sport innovation at the
service of the user experience.
PhD in polymers sciences, I joined Decathlon in 2021 as materials engineer within the footwear
industrial division. I am focused on midsole foams developments, intended for all internal brands and
sports. Lately, I have been working even more on the supercritical fluid (SCF) injection technology as
a new process for Decathlon soles production.
Dr. Walter Ramirez is CEO and Founder of Innventik SL, a Consulting and Engineering firm based in Europe (specializing in Elastomers and Rubbers, designing new plants, and training teams around the world in applications). He worked for 32 years at DESC-Kuo-Monsanto-Repsol-Dynasol, where he was the Corporate Director of R&D Technology and also the Global Director of R&D Technology for Dynasol Elastomers. Dr. Ramirez has experience leading industrial innovation in elastomers, developing new Technologies-Products-Applications including novel elastomer and TPE grades for multiple applications. He is Chemical Engineer with a Doctorate in Polymer Science from Université Claude Bernard Lyon France and has an Innovation diploma from M.I.T. He has been a Scientific Counsel for the President of Mexico, Board Member for the Secretary of Economy, Board Member for the National Science Foundation. He is a chartered engineer and certified polymerization expert. He is Certified Business Innovation Coach and Expert for the European Commission. He is the author of patents, scientific publications and +15 commercial technologies.
Professor Stefan Roth graduated from Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany, with a degree in Plastics Technology, and a PhD for his thesis entitled "Electromagnetic Shielding by steel fibre filled compounds“.
In 2007, he joined B.Braun Melsungen AG, a global medical device manufacturer and started in R&D of infusion systems by managing projects in development of infusion pumps.
Since 2010, he built up and was heading the Materials Science group within Pre-Development / Technical Laboratories. His working fields were plastics for medical disposables and pumps, formula development and refinement, polymer testing and analysis.
In 2017 he has moved his position and has become Professor for product development and design at the University of Applied Sciences Schmalkalden, Germany. His fields of research are plastics in medical applications and additive manufacturing. He is part of the laboratory for applied plastics technology (AKT).
Stefan Roth is chairman of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) committee “plastics in medical” that has been initiated the development of the new VDI guideline “medical grade plastics”. In its function as chairman of the guideline committee, he worked out this new guideline together with his colleague Prof. Thomas Seul and members of various partners of polymer and medical industry.
Dr. Sarah Karmel holds a chemistry degree from the Technical University of Munich and a PhD in inorganic chemistry and catalysis from the Technion, Israel. Her exceptional research contributions during her doctoral studies were recognized with several prestigious awards, including the Schulich Prize of Excellence.In 2015, Dr. Karmel was granted the prestigious Blavatnik Fellowship, which provided her the opportunity to conduct groundbreaking research at the University of Cambridge.
Following her fellowship, Dr. Karmel joined Photocentric Limited in 2017 as the Head of Chemistry. During this time, she successfully established and led the chemistry department, playing a pivotal role in launching more than 30 commercially viable photopolymer materials. Additionally, she spearheaded the establishment of a dedicated division focused on the research and development of 3D printed batteries.
In 2021, Dr. Karmel joined RHEON Labs as the Head of Chemistry and swiftly transitioned to the role of Chief Science Officer in November 2022. In her current position, she oversees the Science Function at RHEON Labs, focusing on the development of new materials and formats. Her expertise and leadership are invaluable in driving scientific advancements within the company.
Marco Klute studied mechanical engineering with specialization in plastics engineering at the University of Kassel/ Germany. His master thesis focused on two-component injection molding of polyamide and liquid silicone rubber (LSR) using different surface treatments. Since 2017 he has been working as a research fellow at the Institute for Material Engineering - Polymer Engineering at the University of Kassel, in the field of material development and natural based composites. He is currently working on two-component injection molding of bio-based polymers regarding material development and analytics of adhesion characteristics as well as the digitalization of injection molding processes using digital twins (supervisor Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heim).
Bachelor in Chemistry by the Basque Public University (1998), Erasmus internship in the University of Utrecht. Polymer Engineering degree teacher since 1998 in Lea Artibai Ikastetxea (London Metropolitan University). Technical manager of Leartiker in the field of Polymers since 2008. He has participated in more than 30 local, national, and international research projects.
If you would like to view further details of each presentation, please download a copy of the programme using the button below.
