peer-reviewed publications, 24 book chapters, 13 patents, and the book,

“Viscoelastic Behavior of Rubber Ma-terials” (Oxford Univ. Press. 2011). His publications have been cited over 7,800 times and he has an H-index of 46. He has given 134 lectures at conferences and workshops, including four at Gor-don Research Conferences. He chaired the 1999 Gordon Research Conference on Elastomers, Networks and Gels, and the 1996 International Rubber Science Hall of Fame Symposium. Dr. Roland was editor of Rubber Chemistry & Technology from 1991 to 1999, and has served, inter alia, on the editorial board of Macromolecules and the advisory board for the American Chemical Soci-ety Advances in Chemistry and Sympo-sium Series. He has consulted for vari-ous companies, including Acushnet, Allied-Signal, Bridgestone, Heatway and the U.S. Department of Justice.

People in the NewsRoland to receive Charles Goodyear medalC. Michael Roland, head of the Poly-mer Physics Section at the Naval Re-search Laboratory, has been chosen for the 2012 Charles Goodyear Medal. The most prestigious award given by the Rubber Division, ACS, honors an indi-vidual for outstanding invention, inno-vation or development which resulted in significant change or contribution to the nature of the rubber industry. Roland is recognized for diverse accomplishments in the field of poly-mers, and in particular, elastomers. Among his discoveries are: (i) den-sity scaling of viscoelastic properties and its relation to the steepness of the intermolecular repulsive potential; (ii) the invariance of relaxation times at various phase transitions; (iii) the non-ideality of polymer isotope mixtures and dynamic heterogeneity in misci-ble blends; (iv) phenomena in rubbery networks, including properties of dou-ble network rubbers and the origin of the Mullins effect; and (v) elastomeric coatings that enhance the resistance of hard substrates to impact penetration, technology applicable to military armor and civilian infrastructure protection. Dr. Roland received a Bachelor of Science degree (magna cum laude) from Grove City College (1974) and a doctorate from the Pennsylvania State University (1980), both in chemistry. He was employed at Firestone Central Research Labs until 1986, when he joined the Naval Research Laboratory. His research involves experimental study of the viscoelastic, mechanical and dielectric properties of materials. He has been an advisor to 18 post-doctoral researchers at NRL. He was the recipient of the NRL E.O. Hulburt Award (2010), the Sigma Xi Pure Sci-ence Award (2002), the NRL Edison Award (2000), two Rubber Division Best Paper Awards (2009 and 2010), and is a fellow of the Institute of Ma-terials, Minerals and Mining (United Kingdom). Dr. Roland has authored over 350

C. Michael Roland

Schuster is Mooney Award choiceProfessor Robert Hans Schuster, direc-tor of the Deutsches Institut für Kaut-schuktechnologie (DIK), is the recipient of the 2012 Melvin Mooney Award. The award, sponsored by Lion Copoly-mer, honors someone who has exhibited exceptional technical competency by making significant and repeated contri-butions to rubber science and technol-ogy. Professor Schuster has been involved with DIK since its inception in 1984, initially as head of the Chemistry and Physics of Elastomers Department. He became director of the institute in 1992. Schuster received his chemistry de-gree in 1967 from the Institute of Organic Chemistry, University “Al. J. Cuza,” in Yassy, Romania, and received his doc-torate from the University of Freiburg, Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, in Freiburg (Germany). In 1969, he was a researcher at the Institute of Physical-Chemistry, Acad-emy of Science, in Bucharest, Romania, and in 1980, he returned to the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry as a re-

searcher. He joined the DIK in 1984 and has served as director since September 1992. He has been a member of the DIK board since 2010. He has played a large role in building the reputation of the DIK as a world renowned center for research, development, education and training in rubber. Professor Schuster has been a lec-turer at the Institute of Macromolecular

Robert Schuster

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People in the NewsChemistry, University of Hanover, Ger-many, since 1987 and a professor at the university since April 1996. With a thorough understanding of the basic elements of rubber chemistry and physics, Schuster has contributed in many aspects of rubber technology. He

has published over 400 refereed papers and three books. He has also given more than 550 lectures and has supervised 25 Ph.D. candidates. He has particularly contributed to the field of polymer filler interactions, in particular carbon black.

Liqun Zhang will be receiving the 2012 Sparks-Thomas Award. This award, sponsored by ExxonMobil Chemical, recognizes and encourage outstanding scientific contributions and innovations in the field of elastomers by younger scientists, technologists and engineers. Zhang, 42, received his Ph.D. degree in 1995 from Beijing University of Chemi-cal Technology. He researched as a visit-ing scholar at The University of Akron in 1999-2000, and as a post doctoral fel-low at Case Western Reserve University in 2000-2001. Professor Zhang was ap-pointed a Cheung Kong Scholar of the Ministry of Education, China in 2005 and received the Distinguished Youth Scientist Foundation Award from the NSFC in 2007. The Center of Advanced Elastomer Materials, headed by Zhang, holds the leading position in China’s rubber sci-ence and technology field. In the areas of rubber science and engineering, he has published nearly 300 papers, includ-ing over 160 international papers. He has been published in Macromolecules, Macromolecular Rapid Communica-tion, Langmuir, Polymer, and Advanced Functional Materials. His papers were

Manas-Zloczower to receive Whitby Ica Manas-Zloczower has been cho-sen as the 2012 George S. Whitby Award recipient. The award, spon-sored by Cabot, honors outstanding international teachers of chemistry and polymer science, and recognizes innovative research, as well as out-standing contributions to the integra-tion of chemistry and polymer sci-ence into our educational system. Manas-Zloczower received BS and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute Jassy in Romania, and a Doctor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technol-ogy. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota. Since 1985, Manas-Zloczower is at Case Western Reserve University and is currently a professor in the De-partment of Macromolecular Science and Engineering. She is also the as-sociate dean of Faculty Development for the Case School of Engineering. In January 2011, Manas-Zloczow-er began serving as the president of the International Polymer Processing Society. She is also a fellow of the Society of Plastics Engineers and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Poly-mer Engineering. She was elected to the board of directors of the Extru-sion Division of the Society of Plas-tics Engineers in May 2000. Professor Manas-Zloczower’s current research interests include nanocomposite materials, structure and micromechanics of fine particle clusters, interfacial engineering strat-egies for advanced materials process-ing, dispersive mixing mechanisms and modeling, design and mixing

optimization studies for polymer processing equipment, microfluidics and microstructure characterization in multi-component systems using fractal analysis. She has advised 26 Ph.D. students, 25 M.S. students, five post-doctor-ates, two Ph.D. exchange students and a large number of undergraduate students. Manas-Zloczower has more than 120 publications in peer-reviewed journals, more than 80 published con-ference proceedings, and a number of book chapters. She is the editor of the 2009 book, “Mixing and Com-pounding of Polymers” published by Hanser. Manas-Zloczower has delivered more than 40 plenary, keynote and invited lectures worldwide. She has given more than 90 seminars at uni-versities and companies worldwide.

Ica Manas-Zloczower

Zhang is Sparks-Thomas Awardee

Liqun Zhang

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People in the News

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positively cited by other persons in the SCI system for over 1,200 times. The H-index of his publication is 19. He was invited to write eight joint book chapters, and has made over 40 invited lectures at international conferences and over 50 lectures in domestic conferences. He possesses over 40 China patents. He is an editorial board member of eight Chinese academic journals, the editorial board member of Rubber Chemistry and Technology and an editorial board mem-ber of Rubber, Plastics and Composites: Molecular Engineering. He is a fellow of the China Chemical Industry and Engineering Society, China Composite Materials Society and China Materials Research Society. He is also a member of theRubber Division, ACS. At present, he is serving as the vice president of the China Rubber Division and vice presi-dent of the China Micro-Nano Compos-ites Division. His main contributions to rubber sci-ence and technology include pioneering and original works in rubber based nano-composites and the development of many rubber nanocomposites. He also conduct-ed research on the structure-performance relation of clay/rubber nanocomposites; some new phenomena and correspond-ing mechanisms were explored. Due to his fundamental works and based on his series patents, the industry line of clay/rubber nanocomposites was successful-ly established in China. To understand the dramatic reinforcing effect of quasi spherical nanofiller to rubber rather than plastic, he developed a percolation view-point for a rubber strengthening mecha-nism, and put forward to concepts of critical minimum particle size and criti-cal particle-particle distance, which well explained many strengthening phenom-ena. He introduced the molecular simu-lation method into a rubber-nanofiller complex system and therefore disclosed many new details and provided some new knowledge in interfacial interaction, dispersion and aggregation, and the rein-forcement mechanism of nanofiller/rub-ber composites. He put forward the con-cept of Biobased Engineering Elastomer (BEE) and successfully synthesized the

first polyester type BEE composites with both high mechanical performance and circumstance stability derived from large scale biomass. He has received awards from relative

associations, federations, societies, min-istries and committees of China including the “9th China Youth Scientific Award,” and the “China University Distinguished Youth Teacher Award.”

Fath, Sabet chosen for TPE AwardMike Fath and Sabet Abdou-Sabet have both been chosen for the Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award in 2012. It is the first time the Division has had dual award winners. The award, sponsored by the Ralph S. Graff Foun-dation, honors significant contributions to the advancement of the chemistry of thermoplastic elastomers. Both were in-strumental in the development of Santo-prene rubber. Abdou-Sabet was born in Cairo, Egypt, and immigrated to the United States in 1959 after receiving his B. Sc. degree in Chemistry with Honors from Ein Shams University. After a short em-ployment as a chemist at Scherr Broth-ers, he was drafted into the Army and was assigned to Walter Reed Institute of Research to help in the identification of potential active agents to combat the ef-fects of ionizing radiation. Upon his honorable discharge from the Army, he attended the University of Maryland, in College Park, MD, with a research grant from the Army to pursue

the identification of potential chemicals against the effects of atomic radiation. He received his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry in 1966, and upon graduation, he joined Monsanto Chemicals. He held a number of positions including director of R&D for the Santoprene Elastomer Business Group. He became the chief scientist of this business, a joint venture with Exxon Chemicals, in 1990-1991, and for the new venture named Ad-vanced Elastomer Systems, which was later acquired by ExxonMobilChemical. He retired at the end of 1999, and holds 25 U.S. patents, as well as their foreign filings. Abdou-Sabet was recognized as one of the Top 100 People/Innovations that Shaped the Rubber Industry by the Rub-ber Division of the American Chemi-cal Society, October, 2009. He was the recipient of the 1996 Technical Award from the International Institute of Syn-thetic Rubber Producers. He was also recognized by the NYC Museum of Modern Art in 1995 in an

Sabet Abdou-Sabet Mike Fath

People in the Newsexhibit titled, “Mutant Materials in Con-temporary Design,” where Santoprene and its co-inventors were cited. In retirement he remains active by consulting, teaching Polymer Blends and Alloys at the University of Akron, and developing elastomer courses at the University of Akron Research Founda-tion. Fath is currently retired after a 45- year career in the rubber industry. Most recently, he was founder and president of Elastomer Technology, Inc. (FTI), a consulting company specializing in rub-ber compound development and thermo-plastic elastomer technology, as well as in commercial development and market-ing of new polymers and chemicals. He began his career as an electron microscopist at B.F. Goodrich Research Center in Brecksville, OH, but soon became involved with materials devel-opment at Goodrich tire and aerospace divisions. From there he moved to Good-year Research where he was responsible for compound development assistance to many of Goodyear’s domestic and Canadian non-tire industrial products plants. In this role, he formulated rubber compounds for a variety of end use ap-plications using most of the commercial elastomers available at that time. After a brief stint with Burton Rubber, he joined Monsanto where he was re-sponsible for: Research and commercial development of new rubber chemicals; and technical service support for Mon-santo’s U.S. and Asian customers. It was during this time that Monsanto began the initial research to develop a new class of thermoplastic elastomers, and the inven-tion of the complete dynamic vulcaniza-tion process was made. The first TPV products were intriguing, but they were not commercially satisfactory. Fath pro-posed a unique cure system which pro-vided a complete and stable dynamic vulcanization of the rubber phase of the TPV which would overcome the short-comings of the initial products, and the family of Santoprene thermoplastic vul-canizates was born. Fath is a long-time member of the ACS Rubber Division, currently emeri-

tus status, where he chaired several committees. He has been a member of six area rubber groups, the Society of Plastics Engineers and the Society of Automotive Engineers. He is the author or coauthor of 19 technical papers and book chapters and three U.S. and several foreign patents. He co-developed techni-

cal courses on both rubber compounding and thermoplastic elastomers and taught these courses at many Rubber Division national meetings and symposia, and at the University of Wisconsin Center Of Engineering Education. He earned a BS and MS in chemistry from Kent State University.

Leblanc is Fernley Banbury Award recipientJean Léopold Leblanc will be awarded the 2012 Fernley H. Banbury award. The Banbury award is sponsored by ???. This award perpetuates the memo-ry of Fernley H. Banbury, the inventor and developer of the internal mixer that bears his name, by honoring innovations of production equipment widely used in the manufacture of rubber or rubber-like articles of importance. Leblanc studied physico-chemistry in the faculty of sciences at the University of Liège, Belgium, with a special empha-sis on polymer science (M.Sc., 1970). He then moved to the faculty of Applied Science (Engineering School) as an as-sistant-lecturer and, having developed an interest for polymer processing and rheology, he started research work on the rheological properties on SBS bloc copolymers in the course of which he built a prototype slit rheometer. He received his Doctorate in Sciences (Ph.D.) in 1976. He joined Monsanto

Europe in Belgium, where from 1976 to 1987, he held various positions in the Rubber Chemicals, Lustran ABS and Santoprene TPV divisions. His last posi-tion at Monsanto was business develop-ment manager in the Rubber Chemicals division. He left Monsanto in 1987 to join Montedison in Italy as manager, techni-cal assistance and applied research, then moved to the position of manager, ap-plied research, when Enichem took over Montedison in 1989. His main respon-sibilities were to set up a full technical facility for polymer processing (plastics and rubbers) in the Coordination Center of Nivelles, Belgium, and to manage customer technical service in North Eu-rope. Leblanc has achieved an international reputation in the field of polymer rhe-ology, with a particular emphasis on complex polymer systems such as filled rubber compounds. During his career, he has delivered around 40 invited lectures in international conferences, has pub-lished more than 100 papers, three books (two in French) and several chapters in collective books. His last book deals with filled polymers. In 1988, he was elected Fellow of the Plastics and Rubber Institute (U.K.) and was awarded the designation European Chemist (EurChem) in 1993. In 1993, he was elected “Professeur des Universités” in France and joined the University P. & M. Curie, in Paris (now UPMC – Paris-Sorbonne University), as head of the then newly developed Polymer Rheology and Processing laboratory, in collaboration with the French Rubber Institute. Since 2002, he has given more than 15 seminars worldwide. He participated in the organization of seven international Jean Léopold Leblanc

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People in the Newsconferences. He will chair the scientific committee of the next International Rub-ber Conference in France, IRC’ 2013. He is a long time member of the Rubber Division (more than 25 years) and has presented around 10 papers at technical meetings of the division, some of them having been published in Rubber Chem-istry & Technology. In the mean time he maintained and focused his R&D activities on process-ing rheology, by fully equipping rubber processing machines (mixer, extruder and injection molding machines) with original systems to measure and record relevant data on a real-time basis. During this period, he started also to pay atten-tion to the relationships between bound rubber and the rheological behavior of filled rubber compounds, that culminated several years later by a model for bound rubber formation. In 1988 he was elected Fellow of the Plastics and Rubber Insti-tute (U.K.) and was awarded the desig-nation European Chemist (EurChem) in 1993. In 1993, he was elected “Professeur des Universités” in France and joined the University P. & M. Curie, in Paris (now

UPMC – Paris-Sorbonne University), as head of the then newly developed Poly-mer Rheology and Processing labora-tory, in collaboration with the French Rubber Institute. In this academic posi-tion, he started teaching polymer rheol-ogy and processing, and managing Ph.D. students (see list in appendix). He suc-ceeded in obtaining the financing by the European Commission of a thematic net-work « MENUSIM : Polymer Process-ing, Measurement and Numerical Simu-lation », (contract BRRT-CT97-5005) and, in collaboration with Prof. Andreas Limper, Paderborn University, Ger-many, he proposed and, when accpeted, managed two Brite-Euram III projects : « PRODESC », Process Description for Silica and Carbon Black compounds – contrat BRPR-CT98-0625 : 12 partners including 10 industrial companies, and « MINI-DERUCOM », Minimum De-fault in Rubber Compounding - contrat BRPR-CT98-0771; 7 parters, including 5 industrial companies). The results ob-tained in the course of these two projects were presented during an international conference in Paderborn, Germany, in

Janurary 2002, that was sponsored by the European Commission. It is dur-ing this period that he decided to renew his attention to the at-the-time newly launched Rubber Process Analyzer (1993) by Monsanto Instrument division (that became Alpha Technologies, now a Dynisco company) , with respect to his long lasting association with the devel-opment project that started in the early 1980’s when he was still a Monsanto’s employee. Thanks to funds received in the course of the above mentioned Euro-pean projects, he bought a RPA 2000TM and started immediately to up-date it in order to develop Fourier Transform (FT) rheometry . The modifications he brought to the instrument are consider-ably extending its capabilities, as recog-nized now by a number of researchers and rubber engineers. He spent the last 10 years in developing this testing tech-nique with respect to its unique capabili-ties to precisely document the nonlinear viscoelastic properties of polymer mate-rials. So far he has published more than 15 papers dealing only with FT studies on various polymer systems .

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