Program Released for Waterborne, High-Solids and Powder Coating Symposium

The 43rd Annual International Waterborne, High‐solids and Powder Coatings Symposium program line‐up has been released. The symposium will be held in the New Orleans Marriott. The week starts with short courses, January 31–February 2, followed by a Technology Showcase Exhibit Hall, February 2–4, and the main technical symposium February 3–5, 2016.

Technical sessions include waterborne, nanotube, bio‐based, academia, corrosion, additives, and a general session for all other talks. The 2016 Plenary speaker is Kurt Olson, Fellow, Coatings Research and Development from PPG Industries. He will be speaking on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. Following will be the keynote speaker, John Gilbert, senior vice president, research and development, BEHR Process Corp. Rounding out the opening session will be our expert advisory panel.

The annual Sidney Lauren Memorial Lecture will be given by Kristen Blankenship, AGC Chemicals America's and winner of the Siltech Best Paper Award for Innovation at the 2015 Waterborne Symposium. The student's day will be on Thursday, February 4 featuring a student poster session/competition, resume books, informal interviews and a student reception. This is a great time to come and meet the students and see the work that is being done here at the School of Polymers and High Performance Materials at The University of Southern Mississippi.

Resume books for the 2015–16 Academic year will be available shortly. Request a copy or be added to the annual mailing list by emailing melanie.heusser@usm.edu.

Other companies represented with papers this year include: BASF SE, Nasa, Dow Coatings Materials, Croda, Nuplex Resins, Cardolite Corp., Dow Chemical Co., Worlee Chemie, Battelle, Molecular Rebar Design, Berger Paints India, Mississippi State University, Stoney Brook University, University of Concepcion, The University of Southern Mississippi, Evonik, SIltech, Dow Corning, BYK Chemie GmbH, Axalta Coatings Systems, Troy Corp., Clariant, Oxiteno, Emerlad Kalama Chemicals, Colmet Engineered Finishing Solutions, Rust‐Oleum Corp., Argex, TBF Environmental Technology Inc., STERIS, Wacker and more.

The symposium will be holding two short courses this year January 31–February 2 (prior to the technical symposium). They have a beginning short course in the Fundamentals of Coatings (optional one day add on for Sunday, January 31, 2016) and the Science of Formulating, and also our more advanced short course in Reformulating to Waterborne Coatings. Find course descriptions and more information on these courses at waterbornesymposium.com.