2 Scientists Elevated to Axalta Fellows

Axalta Coating Systems has elevated Dr. Mike Grady and Dr. Jeff Johnson to Axalta Fellow for their significant scientific accomplishments, technical leadership and commercial contributions. Axalta Fellow is the highest honor that a scientist or engineer can earn within the company’s global technology function.

“Our Axalta fellows have a strong track record of translating scientific knowledge into solutions for our customers and delivering commercial success across our business,” says Dr. Robert Roop, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Axalta. “Mike and Jeff are technology ambassadors and truly exemplify our purpose to innovate smarter surface solutions for better living and a sustainable future. Their outstanding leadership inspires the scientific community.”

Grady is Axalta’s leading expert in reaction engineering, polymer processing, reactor design, modeling and optimization. For more than 40 years, he has developed and improved Axalta’s resin processes for many coating technologies. Grady has also initiated and driven fundamental research to advance higher temperature acrylic free-radical chemistry within Axalta and academia. His process innovations include significant improvements for making many of the company’s key resins, including solution acrylics, polyesters and oligomers for low VOC materials. He leads the global resin network of technology and operations process engineers at Axalta, and is instrumental in driving best practices and known solutions across the company’s laboratories and manufacturing sites.

In addition, Grady serves as an adjunct professor at Drexel University, University of Pennsylvania and Rowan University. He earned a doctorate in chemical engineering from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich, Switzerland.

Johnson is Axalta’s leading expert in resin synthesis. For more than 30 years, he has developed resins that enabled multiple generations of new product development and commercialization, with broad customer and commercial impact across many OEM and industrial customers. Johnson is a subject matter expert for all resin classes at Axalta. His deep knowledge and fundamental understanding cover a variety of polymer architectures, including acrylic, epoxy, polyester, polyurethane and silane chemistry. He has 89 granted patents spanning 14 countries that support commercial sales over the years.

Johnson’s impact goes beyond resin development. The company says his experience in entire value chain of product development lends him credibility with customers. He has also represented Axalta in many technical partnership programs. He earned a doctorate in organic chemistry from University of California, Los Angeles.

Axalta has more than 150 years of experience and knowledge sharing across its technology function. The company’s global team of approximately 1,300 scientists, engineers and technicians is focused on developing smarter products and solutions, and improving processes.