(271b) My Journey into the World of Siloxane Polymerization

In this talk, I will highlight my journey from a chemical engineering undergrad to a researcher at Dow. I will highlight some of failures and successes in graduate school before joining Process R&D function within Dow Performance Silicones. Having spent 5 years of my graduate research investigating economic pathways of converting biomass into chemicals (research that I wouldn’t call polymer research), I will discuss how certain transferable skills helped me adapt to industrial research. I will go over some examples at a high level depicting how I have been able to leverage my skillset in heterogeneous catalysis and reaction engineering to develop fundamental understanding of some of Dow's silicone polymerization processes to make an impact in this area of research.