2017 Award Winner: Dr. Edmund Elce and Dr. Paul A. Kohl
Georgia Institute of Technology and the Promerus team
Edmund Elce received a B.Sc. in Analytical Chemistry in 1988 from Concordia University Montreal, Canada, and his Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry from McGill University in 1995. Dr. Elce’s research career was launched as a Post-Doctoral Associate with Professor James McGrath (Virginia Tech) working on nano-foamed dielectric resins at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. He then joined the BFGoodrich Company as a research chemist (1997-2002), and transitioned to the position of senior scientist at Promerus LLC/Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. (2002-2016). Dr. Elce has co-authored 30 peer-reviewed publications and is a co-inventor on 21 granted US patents. In 2004 he was awarded the Sumitomo Bakelite Co., Ltd. President’s award for the commercialization of the polynorbornene-based Avatrel® photodefinable polymer compositions.
Paul A. Kohl received a Ph.D. from The University of Texas, in Chemistry in 1978. After graduation, Dr. Kohl was employed at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ from 1978 to 1989. During that time, he was involved in new chemical processes for silicon and compound semiconductor devices and their packaging. In 1989, he joined the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, where he is currently a Regents’ Professor and holder of the Hercules Inc./Thomas L. Gossage Chair. He has 270 journal publication, 63 US patents, and more than 400 conference presentations. Dr. Kohl is the past Editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society and Electrochemical and Solid-State Letter, past Director of the MARCO Interconnect Focus Center, and President of the Electrochemical Society.
An award symposium to honor the 2017 winners will be held at the national ACS meeting in San Francisco. The award will be presented at the joint Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering and Division of Polymer Chemistry joint awards reception in San Francisco on Wednesday, April 5, 2017.
