SOLON, OH - Dr. Mark Soucek of the University of Akron, Department of Polymer Engineering, will receive the Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings for 2016. Officers and the Award Committee of the Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) of the American Chemical Society made the announcement.

Dr. Soucek began his academic career 1993 at North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND. He was an Assistant Professor and an Associate Professor at NDSU. He joined the University of Akron, Department of Polymer Engineering, as an Associate Professor in 2001 and is now a Professor. He has 15 issued U.S. patents and pending patent applications and has over 150 peer-reviewed publications, of which 15 are chapters in books, and 34 additional publications in proceedings and preprints. His research is well funded by government grants and industry contracts with a wide range of industrial companies.

Dr. Soucek’s research interests are quite wide and varied and include topics such as latexes, powder coatings, UV-curable powder coatings, kinetic and reaction mechanism studies of cycloaliphatic epoxides, latexes crosslinked with cycloaliphatic epoxides, protective space coatings, high solids and water-reducible alkyds, UV-curable coatings, inorganic/organic hybrid coatings, and coatings from renewable resources.

Dr. Soucek is a recognized leader in drying oil technologies especially with bio-based feedstocks and has been a leader in the renaissance of alkyd technology; he organized and edited a special issue of Progress in Organic Coatings devoted to the subject. His most significant contribution to coatings science and technology is his work on environmentally benign coatings based on non-petroleum feedstocks. This contribution has involved extensive work with industry to develop green technologies.

He is also one of the leading authorities in reactive diluent technology where VOCs are replaced with bio-based liquids that dissolve the polymeric binder and also participate in film formation by reactive crosslinking reactions. Most recently, Dr. Soucek has worked on isocyanate-free technology using cyclic carbonates and acrylic cross-linkable, cycloaliphatic epoxides as replacements for bisphenol A in food-contactable coatings. Dr. Soucek has a long collaboration with the Air Force to replace chromium primers and coatings on steel and aluminum substrates for corrosion protection utilizing inorganic/organic hybrid coatings.

Dr. Soucek’s work has been recognized with two Roon awards and a Gordon award (best paper) in 2000 as well as two Gordon Award finalists and two honorable mentions for the Gordon Award (2004, 2005). In 2004, he was awarded the Innovation Award by Radtech for his work in UV-curable coatings. Dr. Soucek also has received a JPCL Editor’s award for self-stratified coatings from the SSPC in 2014 He has served the coatings community through service on the technical committee of FSCT and presented many short courses at ICE-FSCT. He served three years as Technical Chair for the Cleveland Coatings Society (CCS) and has served as President, Vice President and Treasurer of CCS.

Dr. Soucek will receive the Tess Award from Dr. Qinghuang Lin, Chair of the PMSE Division, in August 2016 during the 252^nd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. An evening reception in honor of the Tess award recipient and other PMSE and POLY award winners also will be held.