Jacob Shevrin of Evonik won the Pflaumer Honors for Innovation Award for most outstanding paper at the Fifth Biennial Eastern Coatings Show in Atlantic City on November 18. The Award was presented by Harley McNair, President of Pflaumer Brothers, for Shevrin’s paper entitled, “Novel Hydrolytically Stable Silane Additives for Improving the Performance of Waterborne Acrylic Roof Coatings.”
The Pflaumer Honors for Innovation Award for outstanding paper went to Ingrid Meier of Evonik for her paper entitled, “Film Coalescence and Coalescing Surfactants: Mechanism of Action and Practical Application of These Unique Multifunctional Wetting Agents in Low-VOC Coatings.”
Shevrin, who won the Pflaumer Honors for Innovation Award for outstanding paper at the Fourth Biennial Eastern Coatings Show, received a $3,000 honorarium for this year’s award. The honorarium for outstanding paper to Ingrid Meier was $2,000.
Jacob Shevrin joined Evonik’s Functional Silanes business line as an Applied Technology Scientist in May of 2017. Since then, his research has focused on silanes for coatings and metal treatment applications. Prior to joining Evonik, Jacob obtained an undergraduate degree in Physics from The Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in Materials Science & Engineering from UPenn.
The ECS Technical Committee, headed by Carl Sullivan of Stanchem, reviewed nine finalist papers in selecting the award winners. Members of the Technical Committee include Charles Shearer of Covestro, Chuck Jones of BASF, Don Herr of Sartomer, and Jerry Norton of SmithChem.
“These awards recognize a high level of innovation and technical contribution to our industry,” Sullivan said, “And we congratulate this year’s winners on the excellence of their technical papers. Our criteria – what we look for in the papers we reviewed — includes innovation, professionalism, technical competence, and preparation. This year’s candidates for the Pflaumer Honors for Innovation Awards were exceptional.”
“Looking forward to the sixth biennial ECS,” Sullivan continued, “We want to raise the level of participation by our colleges and universities in the award competition, and this is our goal. We want each department of chemistry and engineering at all schools along the East Coast to become involved in our industry and to promote the technology of coatings. Our industry needs to attract graduates from these schools, and we think the Pflaumer awards along with the honorariums will induce more students to participate in our next Biennial Eastern Coatings Show planned for 2023.”