Dear fellow members of the SPE TPM&F Division,

Hope you all had a very nice Thanksgiving holiday. It is a great pleasure to write to you as the Chair of the SPE’s Thermoplastic Materials and Foams (TPM&F) Division. I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season. Let us celebrate this wonderful time with our family and friends.

This year was very productive for our division. We have been meeting with people in person at conferences to interact more and continuously learn about emerging sustainable materials and technologies. We started our key activities in March with the Polyolefins 2023 conference in Houston. The SPE ANTEC was held in March in Denver showcasing the latest advances on plastics engineering, thermoplastic materials, sustainability, polymer processing and digitization and additive manufacturing. To finish the conference series, FOAMS® 2023 was held in Taipei, Taiwan in October successfully. It enlarged the boundaries of our program internationally. It was a premier forum related to new developments in foaming technologies. The Foams Tutorial covering foam fundamentals and foam applications was conducted to help students and foam professionals to enhance their knowledge and apply scientific principles to their work every day. We congratulate Prof. Ernesto Di Maio for receiving the Best Paper Award for the FOAMS® 2023 Conference for his paper and presentation entitled “Liquid Foaming of TPU with methylal”.

On behalf our board, I would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere appreciation to the leadership of these conferences, specifically, to Donna Davis for Polyolefins 2023 conference, and Dr. Kimberly McLoughlin for SPE ANTEC® 2023, and Drs. Shu Kai and Stephane Costeux, for Foams 2023 conference in Taipei. I also want to thank Dr. Chul Park, and all the board members for doing an outstanding job in taking care of all board activities and executing them well with enthusiasm during the Covid-19 time. Special thanks to Dr. Anson Wong for the membership report stating that the total membership had steadied for the past one year. We are exploring new avenues to expand our membership opportunities. Maxwell Wingert provided financial report at board meetings regularly.

I would like to highlight few things. The Polyolefins 2024 conference will be held in Galveston, Texas in February. The SPE ANTEC® is planned for March 4-7 in St. Louis, Missouri. The Foams 2024 conference will be held in King of Prussia, PA in September. I strongly encourage you all to attend to enjoy these events and introduce your friends and colleagues to bring great benefits to their professional career. Happy New Year 2024!

Best wishes,
Dr. N.S. Ramesh,
Senior Vice President,
Polymer Technology - Revolution Company