Chemical Engineer

José M. Asua is the professor of chemical engineering and director of the Institute of Polymer Materials (POLYMAT) at the Universidad del País Vasco.

Born in Zaratamo in 1953, he graduated in chemistry from the Universidad de Bilbao (1975) and holds a PhD from the Universidad de Zaragoza (1978). In 1978, he joined the Faculty of Chemistry at Donostia-San Sebastian, where he took charge of developing a teaching and research programme in Polymerization Reaction Engineering. He performed basic research in industrially important polymerisation processes, developing knowledge-based production strategies for water-dispersed polymers, a field in which he is internationally recognised. He leads one of the Basque Government and UPV's high-performance groups and hosts a Marie Curie Training Center for High Performance Dispersed Polymers.

He has published one book and edited another two, published more than 230 articles, given 45 guest and plenary lectures and more than 150 lectures and posters at international conferences. He has co-authored 4 patents and supervised 33 PhD theses. He was the associate editor of Polymer Reaction Engineering and is a member of the editorial committees of Chemical Engineering Journal, Macromolecular Materials and Engineering and Macromolecular Reaction Engineering. He has been a member of the scientific committee of a large number of international conferences and director of a NATO Advanced Study Institute.

He spent time conducting postdoctoral studies at the University of Liège (Belgium) and has spent sabbatical years at Lehigh University (USA) as a Fulbright scholar and at the University of Waterloo (Canada) as a visiting lecturer. He is also a visiting lecturer at the Catholic universities of Leuven (Belgium) and Dortmund (Germany).

He won the Euskadi Prize for Research 2005 in Science and Technology and the Rhône Poulenc Prize for Clean Technologies.

As well as his work in fundamental research, Prof. Asua has worked hard to promote the relations between the university and industry. He has directed more than 30 industrial projects, is a business consultant in Europe and the United States and has launched a programme of associated industries in polymerisation in a dispersed medium, with some of the world's leading polymer producers. He was the co-founder of POLYMAT, a university institute, which in recent years has collaborated with over 100 companies, ranging from small and medium enterprises to multinationals.

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