Joe has 32 years of experience as organic chemist: 12 years in small molecule synthesis for the pharmaceutical industry and 20 years at NatureWorks. An experimentalist with an interest in impurity generation and tracking, reaction kinetics, and mechanisms of the lactide and polymer process. Joe is interested in monomer stereochemistry manipulation, the role of polymer functional end groups, and additive chemistry, and the use of NMR spectroscopy to determine structure, composition of polymer blends, and additive packages.

With NatureWorks, Joe is co-inventor of 11 US patents and their EP counterparts. They include “Method for making copolymers of lactide and a 1:4-3:6 dianhydrohexitol” which used corn derived sorbitol as a monomer. And, “Process for making esters of 2-acetoxyalkanoic acids using an α-hydroxyalkanoic acid ester and an acetate ester as starting materials” and “Process for making esters of 2-acetoxyalkanoic acids using a 3,6-dialkyl-1,4-dioxane-2,5-dione or poly-(alpha-hydroxyalkanoic acid) as a starting material” both of which were lactic acid based processes to acrylic acid.

Joe holds a BS in Chemistry from the Univ of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, a PhD in Chemistry from the Univ of Minnesota, and did Postdoctoral Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served as the NatureWorks representative on the Industrial Advisory Board to the Center for Sustainable Polymers. He currently holds the position of Chief Scientist at NatureWorks LLC