Interview with Dr. Jozef Bicerano, World-expert in Polymer Modeling
Dr. Jozef Bicerano is an extraordinarily influential researcher. A widely cited Harvard Ph.D., Jozef holds 32 full U.S. patents in 10 different patent families assigned to four separate organizations. Jozef is an award winning corporate research scientist, and an expert consultant in polymer manufacturing and engineering. Jozef is well known for his highly cited and highly regarded book, Prediction of Polymer Properties, the methods of which are implemented in commercial software products, such as MedeA P3C, providing wide access to comprehensive and accurate predictive properties for polymeric systems. In this interview, Dr. Bicerano will tell us about his career that led to these accomplishments, his experience in industry, and the growing impact of computer simulations. As a leader in this field, Jozef will also discuss recent developments, especially machine learning, and their impact on computer simulations in materials science, and how polymer research must change to meet critical societal needs
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Erich Wimmer is co-founder, Chief Scientific Officer, and Chairman of the Board of Materials Design. He received an engineering degree in 1974 from the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria, and a doctoral degree in chemistry in 1977 from the same institution. As research associate with Prof. A. J. Freeman at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA, Dr. Wimmer was instrumental in the development of the highly accurate FLAPW method for calculating structural and electronic properties of solids and surfaces. After his “Habilitation” at the University of Vienna, he moved in 1985 to the US joining the supercomputer company Cray Research in Minnesota as Technical Director, where he initiated and headed an industrial consortium to develop a new generation of software for molecular and materials modeling ("UniChem"). In 1992 he was hired by Biosym Technologies in San Diego to start an industrial consortium in electronic, optical, and magnetic materials. In 1999 he became a co-founder of the company Materials Design, where he is leading a contract research team working on a wide range of industrial materials problems including microelectronics, hydrogen pickup in structural materials of nuclear reactors, optimization of chemical processes such as CO2 capture, heterogeneous catalysis, and materials for fusion devices. Recent work involves the application of machine-learning techniques and multiscale modeling. Dr. Wimmer is author and co-author of over 130 scientific publications and book contributions. He has given numerous invited talks worldwide. Dr. Wimmer has been selected as “Outstanding Referee” by the American Physical Society. He is also member of the Materials Research Society and the American Nuclear Society and he serves as chairman of the industrial advisory board of the Swiss research effort MARVEL.
