MIDLAND, MI, February 17, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Bernard J. Meister has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Bernard J. Meister was born to Benjamin and Gertrude Meister in February, 1941 in Maynard, Massachusetts. He attended Maynard public schools and graduated as valedictorian in 1958. He entered Worchester Polytechnic Institute in 1958 and earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering in 1962. Bernie then entered Cornell University, studied chemical engineering and polymers and wrote his thesis on the breakup of jets into droplets for immiscible liquid systems. He obtained his PhD in 1966.
In April 1966 Dr. Meister joined the Dow Chemical Company in the Corporate Research Lab in Midland, Michigan. He started in the rheology lab measuring high shear rate normal stresses in elastic liquids, and using the data to help formulate a viscoelastic constitutive equation that could be used to simulate polymer processing equipment. He then used the constitutive equation he developed to simulate the injection molding of polystyrene cups. In 1972 Bernie married Janet White and had now transferred to the styrenics research lab and he began working on the simulation of the polystyrene polymerization process. He used the kinetic equations of chain initiation, chain propagation, chain termination and chain transfer to predict the amount of polystyrene produced with time and its molecular weight and molecular weight distribution. This computer program was used to guide the development of a new process for a new polystyrene with high molecular weight and low oligomers at high production rates. This was accomplished, the production plant was built and started up on prime product in 1976. The molecular simulation was installed on the plant and started up concurrently with the process. Dr. Meister then added rubberized feed, two phase polymerization and grafting to the program so high impact polystyrene products could be developed in the same way. Also styrene acrylonitrile copolymerization was added for the development of mass ABS products. This made it possible for the researchers and manufacturers to run off line simulations to modify plant conditions and develop new products.
The large number of successes and cost savings attributed to the molecular kinetics program led to the promotion of Dr. Meister to Associate Scientist in 1983. Also in that year, he was named Chemical Engineer of the Year by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. On becoming a scientist, there is less time spent on individual products and more time on guiding people and project development and technical review of projects in other locations. One project he guided was the development of a new high impact polystyrene process that provided more grafting. During this time he also refocused on a product design program that could lead to a similar success to the polymerization programs. The focus was on entangling and disentangling molecules and how it was affected by the velocity fields in processing equipment. Bernie was promoted to Research Scientist in 1992 and retired in 1999. He continued to take on projects for Dow part time under contract until 2005. Throughout his lengthy Dow career, he wrote over 100 Dow reports and also contributed his knowledge to many articles in professional journals. Dr. Meister maintains his membership with AIChE, ACS, SPE, Sigma Xi, and the Society of Rheology.
About Marquis Who's Who :
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America , Marquis Who's Who has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis now publishes many Who's Who titles, including Who's Who in America , Who's Who in the World , Who's Who in American Law , Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare , Who's Who in Science and Engineering , and Who's Who in Asia . Marquis publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
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