Frank Ferro
Beatrix Varga
Prof. Andrew Slark
Professor Andrew Slark was trained in Chemistry and Polymer Science at Loughborough University (BSc (Hons) and PhD). He has over 25 years’ industrial R&D experience at ICI Imagedata, ICI Acrylics, National Starch, Henkel and De La Rue. He designed new technology platforms and polymer products with differentiated performance for a variety of speciality adhesives, coatings and inks applications including automotive, assembly, construction, woodworking, textiles, packaging and printing.
In 2018, Andrew was awarded an EPSRC Manufacturing Fellowship and appointed as a Professorial Fellow at the University of Sheffield to build a new research group on sustainable materials. The EPSRC Fellowship - Innovative Coatings and Adhesives for Recycling (I-CARE), is targeting new, smart polymers which not only provide high performance in use, but which can also be triggered to enable re-use and recycling. The concepts being explored are not only relevant to adhesives and coatings but also to films, elastomers and composites.
Antonio Nerone
Antonio Nerone graduated in Nuclear Engineering in 1983 at the Politecnico of Milan. Antonio has more than 30 years of experience in engineering polymers working for company DuPont, covering several roles ranging from Product and Marketing Management to Key Account Management.From 2011 to 2019 Antonio was Global Segment Leader for Electric and Electronic markets applications. Antonio joined RadiciGroup in January 2020 as Electrical and Electronic Market Expert.
We are pleased that Antonio will be speaking on both days of the conference.
Dr. Laurent Tribut
Dr Laurent Tribut is a polymer expert; he got his PhD at Applied Science National Institute of Lyon, France. In 2006, he started working for Nexans research Center in Lyon as R&D engineer for development of flame retarded and fire-resistant insulating materials for wires and cables. He had in parallel the responsibility of a laboratory dealing with failure analysis and reverse engineering. He joined Schneider Electric in 2013 as polymer expert leader in corporate laboratory supporting all business units in polymer characterization. Since 2020, he took new position in polymer expertise for power breakers application in Materials and environment corporate team. He is also member of different IEC standardization working groups and member of the advisory board of PINFA.
Dr. Reiner Sauerwein
Reiner is Head of Division R&D/Technical Service at Nabaltec AG. He is a polymer chemist by education and started his industrial career in Technical Service. Since 2003 he has been holding several management positions within Nabaltec focusing on development, application technology/technical service and marketing & sales.
Reiner’s main fields of technical expertise are in polymer compounding, formulation and stabilization, incorporation of functionalities, especially flame retardancy, by mineral fillers. In his current position he is also responsible for innovation management, IP and R&D co-operations.
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Pfaendner
Rudolf Pfaendner studied chemistry at the University of Bayreuth in Germany and received his PhD in 1985 with a thesis on electrically conductive polymers.
During 25 years he held different positions in R&D at the specialty chemicals company “Ciba” inter alia as Global Head of Research for the business segment “Plastic Additives” and as Senior Research Fellow.
Rudolf is now Division Director Plastics of the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF and Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
He has over thirty years of experience in polymer synthesis, plastics and coatings additives, stabilizers, recycling, reactive extrusion, nanocomposites, flame retardants and innovation management including numerous patents and publications.
Dr. Sebastian Hoerold
Dr. Sebastian Hoerold has more than 20 years’ experience in the flame retardants industry and worked in research, product development application technology and technical service and is now global head of technical service for flame retardants for thermoplastics at Clariant, Germany. His recent focus is on e-mobility, appliances and E&E applications of engineering plastics.
