PSE 50th Anniversary | Meet The Speakers

Dr. Mohamed El-Aasser

Keynote Speaker / Morning Session

Mohamed El-Aasser is professor emeritus of chemical engineering at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Lehigh University. He held the positions of assistant (1974-1978), associate (1978-1982), and full professor (1982-2018) of chemical engineering.

He served the University in several leaderships positions as vice president for international affairs (2009-2015), provost and vice president for academic affairs (2004-2009), dean of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science (2001–2004), chairman of the department of chemical engineering (1996–2001), co-director of the emulsion polymers Institute (1978–1989), director of the Emulsion Polymers Institute (1989–2009), director of the Center of Polymer Science and Engineering, and director of the NSF Polymer  Interfaces Center (1991-1996).

He is internationally known for his research on polymer colloids: emulsion and miniemulsion polymerization processes, latex systems and their characterization, surfactants and colloidal stability of polymer colloids, latex morphology, film formation and applications,. He and his students pioneered the field of miniemulsions. Authored more than 400 scientific articles, edited 5 books and holds 9 U.S patents. Advised a total of 99 doctoral students (major advisor of 66 PhDs and co-advisor of 33 PhDs), 53 MS students and 31 postdoctoral fellows. Delivered numerous invited lectures at national and international conferences.

El-Aasser received a bachelor's and a master's degrees from Alexandria University, Egypt, and a Ph.D. from McGill University, Quebec, Montreal, Canada. He has received numerous awards including the 1984 NASA Inventor of the Year Award (shared), the 2002 Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings and the 2007 Fellow of the Division of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering (PMSE), American Chemical Society, Lehigh's 1988 Eleanor and Joseph Libsch Research Award in recognition of outstanding research at Lehigh University, and Lehigh University's 1999 Hillman Extraordinary Service Award.

Dr. John Rodgers

Keynote Speaker / Afternoon Session

Professor John A. Rogers obtained BA and BS degrees in chemistry and in physics from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1989.  From MIT, he received SM degrees in physics and in chemistry in 1992 and a PhD degree in physical chemistry in 1995.  From 1995 to 1997, Rogers was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard University Society of Fellows.  He joined Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff in 1997 and served as Director of the Condensed Matter Physics Research Department from 2000 to 2002.  He then spent thirteen years on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, finally as the Swanlund Chair Professor and Director of the Seitz Materials Research Laboratory.  In the Fall of 2016, he joined the faculty at Northwestern University where he is Director of the Querrey-Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics.  He has published ~1000 papers and he is co-inventor on ~100 patents, >70 of which are licensed and in active use.  More than 150 former members of his group are now in faculty positions at research universities around the world.  His research has been recognized by many awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship (2009), the Lemelson-MIT Prize (2011), the Smithsonian Award (2013), the Benjamin Franklin Medal (2019), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2021), the James Prize (2022) and the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award (2024).  He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, of Sciences, of Medicine and of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society.

Dr. Bridgette Budhlall

PSE Alum Speaker

Dr. Bridgette M. Budhlall is Professor and Department Chair of Plastics Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She completed her bachelors of science in 1992 in Natural Sciences (Hons) at the University of the West-Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. She worked as a R&D Chemist in the coatings & adhesives industry before returning to school in 1995 to pursue her doctorate at Lehigh University in Polymer Science & Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Mohammad El-Aasser in the Emulsion Polymers Institute in the Department of Chemical Engineering. After defending her dissertation in 1999, Dr. Budhlall was hired into the PhD career development program at Air Products & Chemicals, Allentown, PA. She conducted three one-year rotations in each of the three divisions: Polymer Chemicals Technology, Corporate R&D Science & Technology Center (CSTC) and Gases and Electronics Advanced Technology. Dr. Budhlall gained experience developing photoresist polymers for nanolithography and supported the development of a high-throughput, integrated monolith catalyst reactor system, the Monolith Loop Reactor. In 2006, Dr. Budhlall was awarded an International Network of Emerging Science & Technology (INEST) Fellowship from Phillip Morris USA to spend the year working with Professor Orlin D. Velev in the department of Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering. Dr. Budhlall, joined the University of Massachusetts, Lowell’s Plastics Engineering Department in 2007 as part of the Nanomanufacturing Center of Excellence initiative, where her Polymer Colloids group study the chemistry and physics of nanocolloidal systems. Dr. Budhlall was appointed to Department Chair in July 2025, after serving as Associate Chair of Doctoral Programs for 9 years.

Dr. Zach Zacharia

Dr. Zach G. Zacharia is the Interim Department Chair, of the Decision and Technology Analytics (DATA) Department, an Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management, and Director of the Lehigh Center for Supply Chain Research at the College of Business at Lehigh University, where he teaches Graduate and Undergraduate courses in Supply Chain Operations Management and Logistics and Transportation. Dr. Zacharia has a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Calgary, an MBA from the University of Alberta, and a PhD from the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on buyer-supplier relationships, collaboration, coopetition, and innovation. Dr. Zacharia has over 30 publications in several academic journals including Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Business Logistics, Journal of Supply Chain Management, Decision Sciences, International Journal of Logistics Management and International Journal of Operations and Production Management. He has over 13,000 citations, according to Google Scholar. Among the awards that Dr. Zacharia has received is the DATA Department Service Award (2023), Staub Faculty Excellence Award (2013) for the College of Business, Lehigh University, Best Paper Finalist (2010) from the Journal of Operations Management, Best Paper Award (2007) from NARTS and Best Dissertation Proposal Award (2000) from University of Arkansas. As a member of a Supply Chain Research Group at the University of Tennessee, he coauthored a book titled Supply Chain Management (Sage Publications, December 2000). Before joining Academia, Dr. Zacharia worked at the University of Tennessee, Center for Transportation Research for six years, eventually becoming an Associate Director and at the Department of Transportation in Alberta, Canada, for ten years as an Equipment Engineer. He is a principal at ZZ Consulting, which primarily focuses on teaching supply chain operations management and evaluating collaboration and procurement strategies across firms in the supply chain.

Patrick Carroll

Patrick Carroll has been employed as a Senior Chemist/Engineer for Greene Tweed & Company for more than 13 years. Patrick is responsible for reformulation, new process and product development, manufacturing and supply chain support as well as process troubleshooting for FFKM & FKM based compounds for multiple manufacturing sites.

Patrick has been involved in Elastomer manufacturing, R&D, Materials Science, and Process engineering for 25 years and was employed by Union Carbide as a Senior Technician and Thomas & Betts (now ABB) Elastimold as the Material Science Manager. He enjoys sharing his knowledge and extensive expertise with employees in Elastomer processing and troubleshooting.

As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Patrick uses advanced statistical analysis to identify and implement technical solutions allowing for process and product improvements and cost reduction.

Patrick received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Stony Brook University, NY.