Dr. Werner Wittmann
Dr. Wittmann began his career in the plastics industry over 35 years ago. He studied Mechanical Engineering at HTL in Austria prior to earning a Doctorate in Economics from Wirtschaftsuniversitat in Vienna. He initially started his career as a Design Engineer at the machining center manufacturer Krause, and, in 1971, entered the plastics industry as a Sales Manager with Engel in Austria. He is fluent in four languages (German, English, French and Spanish), and is studying Mandarin as part of his continued commitment to participate in the global plastics industry.

In 1976, Dr. Wittmann founded Wittmann in Vienna, and, for over 30 years, has built a company based on technical excellence and a strategy of understanding both the global industry and its local markets. The Wittmann company, which began with water flow regulators for injection molding machines, has successfully expanded into a wide variety of industry-leading injection molding technology and auxiliary equipment areas including: robotics and automation systems, material handling and material drying equipment, temperature control equipment, in-mold labeling systems, and granulators.

Dr. Wittmann has acquired numerous technically advanced companies over the years to add both breadth and depth to the Wittmann product line. The company recently purchased Austrian injection molding machine manufacturer Battenfeld, and acquired a line of plastic material blenders and a mold making operation for in-mold labeling in the past few years.

Dr. Wittmann has been at the forefront of many advances in the plastics industry and continues to lead the way. Today Wittmann is a global manufacturer offering plastic processors worldwide a complete range of injection molding machinery, innovative automation technology and auxiliary equipment - from autonomous work cells to centrally managed and controlled system solutions.

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Dr. L. James Lee
Dr. Lee is the Helen C. Kurtz Professor of Chemical Engineering at The Ohio State University. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

Internationally known for his work in the field of polymer and composite engineering, Dr. Lee’s research in reactive processing, low profile additives, sheet molding compounds, and liquid composite molding is the most comprehensive program in the U.S. for automotive and infrastructure applications. He has expanded his research into several frontier fields, including polymer micro/nanoengineering and polymer based BioMEMS (Bio-Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems). His research group has demonstrated that affordable micro- and nano-scale polymer devices can be mass-produced for various industrial and biomedical applications.

Dr. Lee is the founding director of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Center for Advanced Polymer and Composite Engineering, Director of the NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Affordable Nanoengineering of Polymeric Biomedical Devices (the largest polymer nano-manufacturing research program in the U.S.), and Director of the Ohio Center for Affordable Multifunctional Polymer Nanomaterials and Devices. In 2005, he co-founded the Society of Advanced Molding Technology, an international organization with more than 100 academic and industrial members from the U.S., China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Dr. Lee is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a Fellow of SPE. He received the 2008 Malcolm E. Pruitt Award from the Council of Chemical Research. He has published more than 400 technical papers and serves on the editorial board of five well-known technical journals: Journal of International Polymer Processing, Journal of Composite Materials, Science and Engineering of Composite Material Journal, Advances in Polymer Technology, and Composite Science and Technology.

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Dr. Dilhan M. Kalyon
Dr. Kalyon is Institute Professor and a Center Director at Stevens Institute of Technology. He received his B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering in Ankara, Turkey, and his M. Eng. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering/Polymers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Dr. Kalyon’s primary accomplishment has been the generation of the basic science and the technology base for the continuous processing of highly filled suspensions of plastics, which are used in myriad industries, including polymeric composites, biomedical, pharmaceutical, battery, energy, electronics, energetics, shielding, and personal care products.

Understanding the special behavior of highly filled systems led Dr. Kalyon to found, in 1989, the Highly Filled Materials Institute at Stevens Institute of Technology, which has received many grants from very diverse industries. He and his team developed new devices and analysis methods for rheological characterization of polymers and concentrated polymeric suspensions such as the adjustable gap slit rheometer and the squeeze flow rheometry, methodologies for the inverse problem solution for parameters of constitutive equations and wall slip, and mathematical models for processing and manufacturing.

In the course of his research, Dr. Kalyon attracted many students, over 30 of whom have received degrees with work in plastics. He has published widely (over 240 publications), and holds several patents. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, a Fellow of SPE, and was awarded an honorary master of engineering degree from Stevens Institute of Technology.

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Dr. Steven M. Kurtz
Dr. Kurtz is a Principal Engineer, Corporate Vice President, and Director of the Philadelphia office at Exponent, an engineering consulting firm, where he specializes in injury analysis and failure analysis applied to medical devices, including orthopaedic implants. He also holds research faculty appointments at the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems at Drexel University and at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Rothman Institute, Thomas Jefferson University. He earned his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.

Dr. Kurtz has contributed notably to the characterization and understanding of medical plastics, the state of the art in orthopedic and spinal implants, and the education and training of engineers, thus directly impacting the advancement of medical device technology. His research has contributed to improved levels of understanding of the physical properties, degradation, and real-world performance of key medical plastics, including UHMWPE, polyurethanes, and PEEK.

Dr. Kurtz was instrumental in founding the Implant Research Center (IRC) at Drexel University. The goal of the IRC has been to provide insight back to the surgical and engineering communities via scientific publications for improving the longevity of orthopedic implant technologies. The initial focus of the Center has been on orthopedic total joint replacement and spinal implants, but future directions are expected to include implants for the upper extremity and cardiovascular implants.

Dr. Kurtz is an inventor and a prolific author, contributing to the state of the art in characterizing ductile plastics. He has also contributed a hybrid constitutive model for simulation of unloading and cyclic loading behavior of UHMWPE. He has represented the United States as part of the ISO delegation on Implants for Surgery, and as a Fulbright Senior Specialist. He founded and maintains two authoritative websites related to medical plastics, one for UHMWPE and one for PEEK, and is the author of the UHMWPE Handbook, which has become a highly referenced handbook in the medical device industry.

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