Summary
I am a very passionate plastics professional who has had numerous opportunities within Dow as well as externally to develop leadership skills that will be put to use in the role of the Board of Director. At Dow, under my leadership of the injection molding capability, the teams I have led have realized numerous successes. The projects that I continue to lead are complex in nature, by virtue of their importance (product development, IP capture, commercialization, etc.) and in many cases start with very limited or no knowledge. Through collaborations and the guidance of my mentors and leaders, many of those projects have been met with commercial successes. Working in very complex, cross-business, cross-geography teams, and many internal as well as external training, such as the “Leading through personal excellence” certification offered by Stanford Business School, have made me a versatile collaborator, and instilled in me strong stakeholder management and project management skills. I believe similar complexities and intricacies operate at SPE and my leadership experiences can be used at SPE.
Starting from graduate school, where I served as the Global Ambassador and Student Career Advisor, I enjoyed those roles that allowed me to serve the students and led to my being presented the Aspire Award in the Courageous Leadership category by Virginia Tech. I continue to serve the young professionals and students in academia as well as the industry today with several such opportunities that include the speaker of the careers in rheology session at the Society of Rheology, several guest lectures and graduate-level seminars given to the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science department of the Michigan State University, a keynote talk given to the students in India, my voluntary services as the alumni faculty of my undergraduate institution (IIT-BHU), and various opportunities at Dow, such as training bootcamps for the new professionals in the industry. I am interested in lending these experiences to the continued success of SPE.
After joining Dow, I had many external leadership opportunities at SPE (session chair, moderator, TPE TIG board member), SAMPE (session chair at CAMX 2023), and SOR (session chair, member of the future conferences committee). My services to the plastics industry were recognized by being selected a “Rising Star”, given by the “Plastics News” in 2022 which is awarded to 35 plastics professionals under 35 years of age who are already leaders in the field. Since grad school, I’ve attended several SPE conferences, including TPO, FOAMS, ACCE, Plastics in EV and Autonomous Vehicles, Int. Polyolefins Conference, and ANTEC. As much as I appreciate what SPE is doing by providing new opportunities to learn and share knowledge, I believe there exist opportunities for further improvement and modernization so that SPE is geared to serve young and old plastics professionals. Having a good understanding of the gaps in undergraduate and graduate education as well as the talent gaps in the industry, I will strive to address those gaps by creating opportunities at SPE, such as through training, webinars, new conference themes, and sessions, etc.
Through my role at Dow, I had the opportunity to work on a wide range of materials systems, including polymer blends, additives (nucleators, FR, process aids, brighteners, fillers), sustainability (PCRs, monomaterial packaging), automotive thermoplastics (TPO, translucent TPO, EMI shielding) and composites (sustainable, CF, GF), substances of concern replacement, foams, and have constantly pushed the boundaries in materials development. These materials systems and applications translate to different divisions and materials-based categorization at SPE. I am a strong advocate for the modernization and digitization of the polymer processing industry and have personally led digitization and adoption of data management efforts that pave the way for the adoption of AI and machine learning in various polymer processing workflows. These experiences provide me with the technical understanding needed in various SPE sub-divisions. I will advocate for filling in the knowledge gaps, by strongly advocating for placeholders for each of the materials system-based themes at various SPE conferences. I have a strong network of professionals, not only at Dow but also externally in the industry and academia. I strongly believe it is the people, their aspirations for the success of SPE, and their personal career growth goals, that bring them to SPE. If elected, I will work very hard to continue to make the Society successful and take the opportunity to give back to it through striving hard to provide more opportunities to young professionals.
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