Michael Connolly
Dr. Michael Connolly is employed at Huntsman Polyurethanes as Principal Scientist and Program Manager for Urethane Composites specializing in composite resin development, materials structure-property-process characterization, test method development and program management. He has worked for Huntsman for 17 years supporting polyurethane product development in the automotive, consumer, and industrial market segments and in total has 29 years experience in materials development including basic research, polymer composites, thermoplastic polyurethanes and engineering thermoplastics plus acoustic, energy absorbing, and structural foams. Michael has authored or co-authored 12 papers on polyurethane composites at international conferences since 2005 and is holder of 2 patents. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Polymer Science & Engineering from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a Bachelor of Science degree in Polymer Chemistry. Michael is the Chair Elect and Communications Chair for the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) Composites Division where he also manages the Division website (www.specomposites.org). He has served SPE as Vice-Chair and Chair of the Automotive Division and is a former Director of that board. He was one of the original organizers of the SPE Automotive Composites Conference and Exhibition (ACCE), serving as Sponsorship Chair (2001), event Chair (2002) and Technical Program Chair (2003, 2004 and 2013). He is currently a member of the Advisory Board for the Fraunhofer Project Centre for Composite Research at the University of Western Ontario and formerly chaired the American Plastic Council’s Automotive Roadmap Technical Committee. Michael is a member of SPE (since 1992) and the American Chemical Society (ACS). He was named a SPE Honored Service Member in 2013 and the Composites Person of the Year in 2012 for the SPE Composites Division
