SPE and the SPE Foundation have formed an Advisory Board to support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) within the Society and the plastics industry. Through the formation of this Advisory Board, SPE intends to develop educational, professional development, mentoring, and recruitment resources for SPE’s elected leaders, staff, members and their companies, to ensure all stakeholders have a thorough understanding of the inherent value of becoming more diverse, inclusive, and equitable.
DEI Advisory Board Members are:
Saurav S. Sengupta, Ph.D. (he/him)
Advisory Board Chair
Principal Research Scientist in Packaging & Specialty Plastics, Dow
Lilian Agyemang-Yeboah (she/her)
Applications Engineer - Life Science, Entegris
Patrick Farrey (he/him)
CEO, SPE
Lilian Judy is a Ghanaian woman who graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell with a degree in Plastics Engineering, and has worked in multiple industries ranging from Packaging, Films, specialty chemicals and now the Biotech/Pharma industry.
Lilian is currently a Life Science Applications Engineer at Entegris, where she supports single use freeze/thaw and cold chain applications.
She is a Women in STEM Advocate who is creating a space through her nonprofit organization, WEMO, to encourage and inspire young girls and women who look like her to go into STEM fields. She is on a journey to help young women in stem fields succeed and not just that but thrive on their journey to the top of their engineering careers mainly through mentoring and creating opportunities.
Pat has been the CEO of SPE since June 2017. A career association executive, Pat was previously an Executive Vice President of Kellen – a global association management firm with offices in Atlanta, Brussels, Beijing, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, New York and Washington, D.C. Pat was a member of the company’s Executive Board and managed its Chicago and Denver offices. Pat was a founding partner of the association management company Landon, Farrey & Associates, Inc., which was acquired by Kellen in October 2011. Prior, he and his business partner launched Independent Publishing Company (IPC), a publisher of packaging-industry trade magazines, association journals and web sites. IPC was acquired by Medical World Communications (NJ) in December 2001.
Pat specializes in helping Societies achieve profitability, relevance, and vitality. His strengths include strategic planning, marketing, global expansion, membership development, publishing, administration, public relations, meetings, and trade show management.
Brian L. Gibson (he/him)
Retired
Lynzie Nebel (she/her)
Upstream Quote Engineer, Cytiva; Co-host, PlastChicks Podcast; VP of Membership Engagement, SPE Executive Board
Cathy Nestrick (she/her)
DEI Leader / Co-Host, Parity Podcast; Former VP and General Counsel, Berry Global Group, Inc.
Brian's career was that as a Product Development Engineer and Manager with plastics, chemical, converting and injection molding expertise in diversified technology and manufacturing companies.
Lynzie is an Upstream Quote Engineer for Cytiva, managing the product costing for custom upstream hardware equipment for bio processing. Throughout her career, Lynzie has gained experience in the automotive, appliance, medical, pet, and micro injection molding industries.
Diego Pedrazzoli, Ph.D. (he/him)
Senior Research Engineer, Johns Manville
Jonathan Quinn (he/him)
Director of Market Development & Sustainability, Pregis
Sherrika Sanders, Ph.D. (she/her)
Senior Technical Engineer, Manner Polymers
Dr. Pedrazzoli graduated in 2010 in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Trento (Italy) and Luleå University of Technology (Sweden). He earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2014 from the University of Trento, after spending his second half of graduate studies working at the Georgia Institute of Technology. For his Ph.D., he worked on the development of advances polymers and composites applied to the automotive and aerospace industries.
Diego joined Case Western Reserve University (Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering) as a Research Associate in the Fall 2014 with the aim of developing electrically-conductive fiber-reinforced composites for damage monitoring applications. Diego joined BNNT, LLC in 2016 as Materials Scientist with the aim to develop polymer nanotubes from the whiteboard to the R&D apparatus to the factory. He later joined Johns Manville in 2017 as Sr. Research Engineer to support (1) product/process/technology development, (2) new business development and (3) intellectual property development and joint collaborations with external parties.
Jonathan is the Director of Market Development and Sustainability at Pregis, where he leads the market segmentation strategy development and execution along with all facets of flexible packaging sustainability focused on providing innovative products and services that Protect, Preserve, & Inspyre. Jonathan joined Pregis in June of 2021.
Jonathan is recognized as an expert in the areas of Packaging Sustainability, consumer insight and voice of consumer associated with packaging. He has conducted extensive consumer research on the e-Commerce and consumer packaged goods sectors. Prior to joining Pregis, Jonathan most recently held Marketing leadership roles at NOVA Chemicals. Additionally, he has held sales leadership and business development roles at Illinois Tool Works Zip-Pak division, the COESIA Group, and Multisorb Technologies.
Eloa Garcia Moreira Silva (she/her)
DEI, Culture and Development Leader, Braskem America
Eve Vitale (she/her)
Chief Executive, SPE Foundation
Sue Wojnicki (she/her)
SPE COO
Eve Vitale, SPE Foundation Executive, was recruited in 2016 to expand the PlastiVan® program. She holds a BS in mechanical engineering and an MS in manufacturing engineering. She spent 8 months on the road delivering the program to thousands of students to find ways to increase its impact. She and her husband own an engineering consulting business specializing in plastics manufacturing and sustainability.
Dr. Sanders received her undergraduate degree from Xavier University of Louisiana in Chemistry. After receiving a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry and completing postdoctoral research, Sherrika enjoyed a 9-year career as a Senior Scientist, Technical Services Scientist, and Group Leader for The Dow Chemical Company. Following her tenure at Dow, Sherrika became the R&D Director at Authentix, Inc. located in Dallas, TX. In this role, she managed development, formulation, scale-up, quality and commercialization of markers for authentication solutions while also leading the Environmental, Health and Safety function for the Company.
Eloa has experience as an HR Business Partner for different areas in industrial companies. She has 11 years experience in talent development and management of HR processes and programs for different countries (Brazil, US, Mexico and Germany). She has focused on building and managing processes, programs, trainings and tools for people development (Career, Coaching, Mentoring, Succession Planning, Performance management).
Eloa has managed and disseminated a Work Environment and Corporate Culture survey and has managed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs in Brazil and in the US. She has designed and deployed her company’s Employee Value Proposition and Employee Experience.
Adrienne Woodard (she/her)
Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Covestro
Sue is the SPE Chief Operations Officer since July 2022. She joined the SPE Team in September 2011 holding positions in the Membership, Events and Marketing areas. Prior to SPE, Sue spent her early career years in manufacturing where she held managerial positions in finance at Unilever, Clairol, and Cytec.