Speaker and Moderator Biographies
Jim Alder is the senior vice president, Operations and Technical, at Celanese Corporation. Alder oversees the company’s global-manufacturing; supply-chain; environment, health, and safety; and technology operations, as well as the overall productivity efforts, including Six Sigma and operational excellence.
He previously held various roles within Celanese in manufacturing, research and development, and business management. He joined the company in 1974 and has a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Carl Bilgrien is vice president of research and development, Materials and Packaging Technologies, at W. R. Grace. He has 25 years of experience in research and technology management over a range of specialty materials and industries. Bilgrien joined W. R. Grace in 2007.
From 2005 to 2007 Bilgrien was vice president of R&D for Aspen Aerogels, a developer and manufacturer of nanoporous silicate materials valued for their excellent thermal, acoustic, and electrical insulation properties.
He started his industrial career with Dow Corning in 1986 as a research chemist and spent the next 20 years in research, development, new business development, and R&D leadership roles. In 1990 he was named R&D manager for Specialty Elastomer Materials and in 1995 became R&D manager for Performance Chemicals. With the formation of Dow Corning’s New Ventures business unit in 2000, Bilgrien took on the role of new-business development manager to expand early-stage opportunities in nanotechnology, thermoplastics, and flexible-display applications.
Bilgrien earned his B.S. from the Honors, Lyman Briggs, and Natural Sciences Colleges of Michigan State University and his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Florida. He has been a leader in Boy Scouts of America for over 10 years.
Paul T. Bowen joined the Coca-Cola Company in 1999 and currently works in the Environment and Water Resources Department, where he leads water-efficiency and wastewater-compliance efforts for the Global Water Stewardship Team.
He also assists with water- and wastewater-treatment issues and the development of water-treatment technologies for Coca-Cola worldwide. Bowen is Coca-Cola’s representative on the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable, an organization he helped start.
Outside of Coca-Cola, Bowen is a trustee of the Water Environment Federation and serves on the board of directors of Water for People, a nonprofit group that provides sustainable water and sanitation systems in areas of need around the world. He has an M.S. and Ph.D. in environmental systems engineering from Clemson University.
Jingguang Chen is the Claire D. LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware, where he first accepted a faculty position in 1998. He served as director of the Center for Catalytic Science and Technology from 2000 to 2007 and as the interim director of the University of Delaware Energy Institute from 2008 to 2010.
Chen has over 200 journal publications and 16 U.S. patents. He is very active in the catalysis and energy communities, serving as catalysis secretariat of the American Chemical Society and sitting on the board of the North American Catalysis Society. He has also chaired the Philadelphia Catalysis Club and the Gordon Research Conference on Catalysis.
Chen spent one year as a Humboldt Research Fellow before starting his career at Exxon Corporate Research Laboratories in 1989. He received a B.S. from Nanjing University and a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh.
Dipak Chowdhury is division vice president for display technologies at Corning. Chowdhury joined Corning in 1993 as a research scientist in the Mathematical Modeling Group in Science and Technology. In 1998 he was appointed manager of the Photonic Modeling and Process Engineering Group, and in 2001 he became research manager of the Process Engineering and Modeling Group. He was appointed research director of the Modeling and Simulation directorate within Science and Technology in 2002. In 2007 he was named director of the Corning European Technology Center. Further, in 2008, he became president of Corning S.A.S., the company’s European entity.
Chowdhury is the author of 30 technical publications, and he has made 24 presentations at technical conferences. He holds 12 patents in the area of optical communication. He is a member of the Optical Society of America and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and he is an editor for journals and other publications connected to these societies. In 2008 he was elected a fellow of the Optical Society of America. His professional honors include the Science and Technology People Development Award and the Demonstrating Inclusive Behaviors Award from the group Creating Inclusive Culture.
Chowdhury received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and master’s and doctoral degrees from the electrical engineering department of Clarkson University. Before joining Corning he spent two years at the Applied Physics Department of Yale University as a postdoctoral fellow on a joint appointment from Yale and New Mexico State University.
Thomas M. Connelly, Jr., is executive vice president and chief innovation officer at DuPont. He joined the company in 1977, as research engineer at the DuPont Experimental Station.
He has held a number of technical and leadership roles, including laboratory director, in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. He led a number of major DuPont businesses, including Delrin and Kevlar, while based in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Connelly graduated from Princeton University with degrees in chemical engineering and economics. As a Winston Churchill Scholar, he received his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Cambridge. He serves in advisory roles to the U.S. government and to the Republic of Singapore.
Fred E. Festa is chairman, president, and CEO of W. R. Grace & Co. Festa joined Grace as president and COO in 2003 and assumed CEO responsibilities in 2005, ultimately being named chairman of the board in 2008. He helped create the Grace Research Council to oversee greater R&D collaboration and generate an active innovation pipeline.
Festa came to Grace from Morgenthaler Private Equity Partners. From 2000 to 2002, he was president and CEO of ICG Commerce. Festa’s knowledge of manufacturing was established during a seven-year tenure at AlliedSignal, now Honeywell. He worked in the company’s specialty chemical, polymer, chemical intermediaries, and fibers businesses in in general management, business development, and finance.
Festa began his career at General Electric, where he spent 12 years in financial management positions. He received a B.S. in finance from the State University of New York at Oswego.
Dan Futter is vice president of Dow Corning’s Business and Technology Incubator (B&TI), which is chartered with discovering and building significant new business opportunities. He started in this role in 2008.
Futter joined Dow Corning in 1994 as a technical manager for packaging development in Belgium, and in 1998 became commercial manager for thermoplastics. He moved to Ireland in 2001 to serve program manager for Dow Corning’s Plasma Solutions, a novel start-up exploring atmospheric plasma-based dry-coating technology and markets. In 2004 Futter became global industry director for the corporation’s Coatings and Additives Business.
Before joining Dow Corning, Futter spent six years with ExxonMobil Chemical Company, holding various positions in sales, customer, and technical service. He serves on the boards of the Specialty Chemicals Business at Dow Corning, the MidMichigan Innovation Center, and the Midland Community Tennis Center. Futter obtained an honors B.S. in biochemistry and biotechnology from the University of Birmingham.
Jonathan A. Goldhill is a senior vice president of Kline & Company, a Philadelphia-based management consulting and market-research firm. He is responsible for Kline’s management consulting services and its global technology and innovation practice.
Goldhill’s clients are major players in the chemicals, energy, and consumer-products sectors. Examples of Goldhill's client engagements include assessing best practices in technology and innovation management to identify and close performance gaps; realigning R&D strategy, processes, and organization to reflect changing business and technology drivers; and developing new processes, funding mechanisms, and incentives to manage the interface between corporate and business R&D.
Prior to joining Kline, Goldhill was a vice president of Arthur D. Little, where he led the company’s global chemicals practice, and CEO of Cellestian, which was acquired by Kline in 2005. He has authored articles and has been a guest speaker on many topics, including turning commoditization into a competitive advantage. Goldhill obtained a degree in engineering from King’s College London and subsequently read law there as well.
Michael Gonzalez is a primary investigator for the Green Chemistry and Engineering for Chemical Synthesis project at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. His research efforts are focused on the development of sustainable chemical processes that incorporate a holistic view.
Gonzalez's areas of expertise include green catalyst development, catalytic processes for the oxygenation of saturated hydrocarbons, biorenewables as a potential feedstock for chemical production, and the use of water as a reaction medium and process intensification.
Gonzalez obtained a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Texas at El Paso and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at the University of Florida.
Hugh Helferty is manager of corporate strategic research at ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company. In this capacity he is responsible for providing the fundamental scientific base that supports and drives innovation throughout ExxonMobil.
Helferty joined Imperial Oil's Research Department in 1981. After a leave to earn an MBA, he moved to the Refining Department in 1985. In 1988 Helferty became supply manager of Imperial’s Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, refinery and in 1991 he was named planning and performance analysis manager for Imperial's Downstream.
In 1994 Helferty transferred to Sarnia as technical manager for the Sarnia Refinery and Chemical Plant. In 1997 he moved to Exxon Engineering as manager of the Environmental, Safety, Civil, and Marine Division. In 2000 Helferty joined ExxonMobil Process Research as director of the Fuels Processes Laboratory. In March 2005 he became the products research and technology manager for ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company.
Helferty received a B.S. in chemistry from Queen's University (Ontario) and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.
Michael C. Kerby is the global chemical research manager for ExxonMobil Chemical. He joined ExxonMobil’s Process Development Laboratories in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1989. Over the last 20 years he has held a number of technical and management positions within ExxonMobil Research and Engineering, ExxonMobil Refining and Supply Company, and ExxonMobil Chemical Company.
He holds 29 U.S. patents and was recently part of a team that was recognized with the American Chemical Society’s Heroes of Chemistry award for the development and commercialization of the Nebula catalyst used for producing cleaner diesel fuel.
Michael C. Kerby received his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Texas, Austin, and performed postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley.
Yu Meng is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She specializes in gender issues in science, science and technology policy in interdisciplinary sciences, science and technology policy in China, and patent and bibliometric analysis.
As a research assistant in Georgia Tech’s National Science Foundation ADVANCE Program and its Program of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, and as a visiting researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Meng has been involved in various projects pertaining to her research focus. Her dissertation investigates how gender disparities are related to gendered patterns of collaboration and patenting in nanotechnology.
Keith Moser developed and manages the innovation process at Exelon Nuclear, a business unit of Exelon Generation. Since introducing the process in 2006, Exelon Nuclear has developed over 120 innovations that represent 940 person-rem of radiation exposure savings, over $685 million in cost savings, and a record 18 Nuclear Energy Institute Top Industry Practice Awards. Since 2001, Moser has been either the team lead or a team member on eight such awards.
Moser is also the technical point of contact for Exelon Nuclear’s international technical exchange program, which partners with Electricité de France, Tokyo Electric Power Company, and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power. He joined the company in 1996 as a steam-generator and reactor-vessel engineer. He went on to develop and manage Exelon Nuclear’s BWR Reactor Internals program and in this role developed numerous innovations that are used worldwide.
In 2005, Moser was honored with a Nuclear Excellence Award from the World Association of Nuclear Operators. Prior to joining Exelon Nuclear, Moser was chief inspector for Chicago Bridge and Iron Company, responsible for the quality of nuclear, military, petrochemical, water treatment, and other fabricated product lines. He received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from LeTourneau University in 1980 and a master’s degree in business from Olivet University in 1990.
Parry M. Norling is a research fellow at CHF. He is also an instructor at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Delaware and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
From 2001 to 2003 Norling was AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute at the RAND Corporation. He retired in 1998 after 33 years with DuPont, where he held a number of R&D and manufacturing management positions and served as corporate director of health and safety.
Norling is a former chairman of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry’s Chemical Research Applied to World Needs committee and a former chairman of the Industrial Research Institute. He contributed a chapter to Innovation, Science, and Institutional Change: A Research Handbook. Norling received a B.A. in physical sciences from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in polymer chemistry from Princeton University.
Rachel Parker is a former research fellow at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, where she worked on a comparative project investigating Nanotechnology Policy in China and the United States. This fall Parker will begin a new position as a research staff member at the Science and Technology Policy Institute.
As a recipient of the National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship, Parker spent three months conducting interviews on nanotechnology R&D in China and Taiwan. She is interested in how nano and other emerging technologies can be used to harness equitable development and environmental remediation.
Parker received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Brandeis University and a master’s degree in management of nongovernmental organizations from the London School of Economics. She received a Ph.D. in sociology with an emphasis in global and international studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Stephen D. Pryor has been vice president of ExxonMobil Corporation since 2004 and president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company, a subsidiary, since 2008. Previously he served as president of ExxonMobil Refining & Supply Company and as executive vice president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company.
Pryor joined ExxonMobil as a marketing representative in 1971 and held a variety of supervisory assignments in Europe and Asia before becoming president of Mobil Asia Pacific, International Marketing and Refining, and ExxonMobil Lubricants & Petroleum Specialties Company in the late 1990s.
Pryor is a director of the American Chemistry Council and a trustee of Lafayette College. He received a B.S. in biology from Lafayette College and an M.B.A. from Harvard University.
Raj Rajagopalan is director of Process Research and Engineering at W. R. Grace & Co. His recent responsibilities include geographic expansion of R&D capabilities and integration of global R&D resources.
Rajagopalan has 29 years of experience in industrial R&D. Since joining Grace, he has held several R&D management positions. Rajagopalan holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Houston.
Wayne Ranbom is the director of research and development for the Functional Additives business of Arkema. In this position he leads worldwide research in polymers and materials, with an emphasis on polymer initiation and crosslinking, improving the impact and processing of polymers, organometallic chemistry, and chemical vapor deposition and transparent conducting oxides.
Ranbom earned a B.S. in chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Minnesota.
James P. Rogers is president and CEO of Eastman Chemical Company and serves on its board of directors. He joined Eastman as senior vice president and CFO in 1999 and four years later was named executive vice president, president of Eastman Division, and president of the Chemicals and Fibers Business Group.
Rogers was previously executive vice president of International Specialty Products, executive vice president and CFO of GAF Corporation, treasurer of Amphenol Corporation, and vice president in corporate finance of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company.
Rogers serves on the board of directors of the Lord Corporation, a private technology company, and he is a member of the American Section of the Société de Chimie Industrielle. Rogers is also active in the United Way of Greater Kingsport. He earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Steven Rosenberg is a fellow in R&D for the Dow Water and Process Solutions business unit of The Dow Chemical Company. In this role, he leads application-development research globally, including the piloting and field demonstrations of complete water systems utilizing Dow’s advanced purification technologies.
From 2006 to 2009 Rosenberg resided in Shanghai and was responsible for developing new advanced ultrafiltration products and for their integration into desalination systems as a reverse-osmosis pretreatment technology. Since he returned to the United States, his research activities have expanded to include complete system design and component integration in desalination systems and membrane-filtration plants.
Rosenberg holds a B.S. in chemistry and mathematics from the State University of New York at Albany and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University.
Wunmi Sadik is a professor of chemistry and director of the Center for Advanced Sensors and Environmental Systems at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton. Sadik has held appointments at Harvard University, Cornell University, and the Naval Research Laboratories. Her current research centers on interfacial molecular recognition processes, sensors and biomaterials, and immunochemistry with tandem instrumental techniques.
Sadik is a recipient of Harvard University’s Distinguished Radcliffe Fellowship, the National Science Foundation’s Discovery Corps Senior Fellowship, the SUNY Chancellor Award for Research, the Australian Merit Award, the Chancellor Award for Outstanding Inventor, and the National Research Council COBASE fellowship.
Sadik serves as nanotechnology editor for the Journal of Environmental Monitoring. She is chair of the 2011 Environmental Nanotechnology Gordon Research Conference. She holds 3 U.S. patents and has presented 380 scientific papers, book chapters, and lectures focused on biosensors, bioelectrochemistry, AND environmental and materials chemistry.
She received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Wollongong in Australia and did postdoctoral research at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.