Plenary Speakers

Andrew Somervell

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare

Andrew joined Fisher & Paykel Healthcare in 2006 and has held various roles in product development and manufacturing management. He was appointed Vice President – Products & Technology in April 2016. His current responsibilities include research and development, product marketing and clinical. Before joining Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Andrew was a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and holds a doctorate in physics from the same university.

Dr. Ines Kuehnert

Institute of Polymer Materials & Leibniz-IPF

Dr. Ines Kuehnert is the Vice Director of the Institute of Polymer Materials and the head of the Processing Technology department at the Leibniz-Institute of Polymer Research Dresden (Leibniz-IPF). She has more than 25 years of polymer processing and material development research experience and are involved in research projects and industry cooperations related to process-controlled morphologies and interfaces, multi-material combination (injection molding, additive manufacturing), and process monitoring and simulation.

Further Activities: Spokesperson of Expert network “TPE-Forum”, International Representative Germany in Polymer Processing Society (PPS), Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), Association of German Engineers (VDI) – contributions to the VDI-guideline 2019 “Testing the adhesion of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) on substrates” and 2020 “Characterisation of flow behaviour of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE)”

Professor Kim Ragaert

Maastricht University

Kim Ragaert is full professor at Maastricht University, where she is the Chair of Circular Plastics within the Department Circular Chemical Engineering (CCE). She leads a 25-staff research group on Brightlands Chemelot Campus focused on mechanical recycling of plastics and making the overall circular plastics system work.

Kim is highly committed to training the next generation of engineers and chairs the educational programme committee of the BSc Circular Engineering at UM’s Faculty of Science and Engineering.

A respected authority in her field, Kim’s 2017 review paper on plastics recycling has been cited over 2500 times, she was the 2020 European Plastics Recycling Ambassador and a 2024 Royal Finalist of the Prins Friso Engineer of the Year award. She helps move the plastics industry towards circularity via her work as an Impact Committee member on ReOcean Investment Fund and scientifically supporting major reports like the well-known 2022 ReShaping Plastics report. Kim is a founding member of Brightlands Circular Space.

Kim Thompson

Rocket Lab

Kim is a Structural Analyst at Rocket Lab working on the development of Neutron, this is a reusable carbon-composite launch vehicle designed for mega constellation deployment, deep space missions, and human spaceflight.

Professor Peter Halley

University of Queensland

Peter is a professor in polymer engineering in the School of Chemical Engineering at The University of Queensland. He works on the underlying research for the translation to new sustainable polymer products and processes. He is involved in research projects on biopolymers, rheology and processing of plastics and biomaterials, and sustainable polymer processes.

He has had an career at the interface of academic and industrial research, especially via industry projects and many cooperative research centres (CRCs in food packaging, sugar innovation, polymers, food waste, solving plastic waste). He is currently a chief investigator in the ARC industrial training centre for bioplastics and biocomposites (ARC-ITTCBB), the solving plastic waste CRC (spwCRC), and the Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA).

Professor Anil K. Bhowmick

University of Houston

Professor Anil K. Bhowmick is currently a faculty at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the University of Houston, USA. He was a former Professor of Eminence, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.

His main research interests are: Nanomaterials and polymer nanocomposites, Sustainable materials and technology, Thermoplastic elastomers and Polymer blends, Failure and degradation of polymers, Rubber-filler Interaction, Adhesion and adhesives, Polymer modifications, and Rubber technology. He has more than six hundred peer reviewed international journal publications in these fields, 35 book chapters and seven books to his credit. He holds twenty-three patents, including US, Japanese, Indian and German patents. He received the 2022 Melvin Mooney Distinguished Technology award of the American Chemical Society and the 2021 J. L. White Innovation award from the Polymer Processing Society, USA. He was also the recipient of many other awards including the 2002 winner of the Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers award, the 1997 winner of the George Stafford Whitby award of the Rubber Division, American Chemical Society, 2019 Fred E. Schwab Education Award of the Society of Plastics Engineers, USA, 2001 K.M. Philip award of the All India Rubber Industries Association, Trila Tyre times award 2019, IRCO gold medal 2024 etc. He is currently serving on the Editorial Board of many international journals including ACS Rubber Chemistry and Technology (USA), Journal of Applied Polymer Science (USA), Journal of Materials Science etc. He is a fellow of premier science and engineering academies in India.