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Dr. Joshua
Otaigbe joined The University of Southern Mississippi
faculty in 2002 after a successful career at Iowa State
University where he was a tenured faculty member in
both Depts. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
& Enginering, and Leader of Polymers and Composite
Research Group. Otaigbe joined the Iowa State University
faculty in 1994. Before joining Iowa State, he worked
as a Project Leader for Corning Incorporated in New
York. Earlier, he held academic positions at the University
of Alberta, Canada, and University of Benin in Nigeria.
Otaigbe earned his B.S. degree in industrial chemistry
(1979) in Nigeria and the Ph.D. Degree in polymer science
and engineering (1984) from the University of Manchester
(UMIST), England.
In 2002,
Dr. Otaigbe was elected a Fellow of the United Kingdom
Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining for contributions
of international significance to the polymer and composite
materials field. This is the highest honor bestowed
upon professional members of this international science
and engineering institute. He is also a Fellow of Society
of Plastics Engineers (SPE) and in 2001, he was elected
to the SPE Board of Directors, Engineering Properties
& Structure Division (EPSDIV). Professor Otaigbe
was awarded a visiting professorship for the Summer
of 2003 at the Swiss Federal Institute of technology
(ETH-Zurich) in Zurich, Switzerland.
Dr. Otaigbe's
research is in the areas of polymer engineering and
materials science. His research blends chemical engineering
sciences with materials structure and property principles
to understand and improve processes for advanced materials.
He is also actively involved in university-industry
partnerships to solve industrially relevant problems.
These problems are often at the boundaries between established
disciplines or in areas combining many disciplines that
may ultimately lead to discovery. Through careful mentoring,
he is empowering young engineers to develop the discipline
to continue learning, and encouraging them to take creativity
excursions outside the imagined constraints of their
specialized areas that may ultimately lead to most exciting
opportunities for the future.
Dr. Otaigbe
received the prestigious U.S. National Science Foundation
CAREER Award and the Best Paper-Polyolefins Award from
the Thermoplastic materials and Foams Division of the
Society of Plastics Engineers, USA. He was listed as
an honored member in Who's Who of American Inventors
(1998-1999 edition)
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