This year’s recipient of the PLACE Division Daniel Siegel Scholarship is Hongchao Zhang. Mica Corporation and the Siegel Family established the Daniel Siegel Scholarship fund as a tribute to the late founder of Mica Corporation, and the ideals he held dear. Siegel believed that imagination and creativity should be fostered and that higher education should be available to all who aspire to it. He was a strong supporter of the TAPPI tradition of sharing knowledge to advance technology and increase sustainability in industrial manufacturing.
The award was presented on April 12th to Zhang at the TAPPI PLACE conference in Fort Worth, TX by Siegel’s son and current President of Mica Corporation, Jeffrey Siegel, and granddaughter, Jaclyn Epstein who was hired as Mica’s Strategic Project manager earlier this year.
“Zhang is a fine example of our industry’s future, and a tribute to TAPPI’s importance at the university level,” Siegel said at the award ceremony.
Zhang (left) accepts award from Epstein (center) and Siegel (right) at TAPPI PLACE Conference.
Zhang is pursuing his Ph.D.in Food Engineering, Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Washington State University. He works as Committee Chair of Professional Development and also Social Outreach in the Food Engineering Club at WSU.
Zhang is an active student member of TAPPI, IFT and ASABE. He plans to pursue a career in academia or R&D of food packages/food related areas. He is currently seeking an internship with food packaging/food companies while searching for postdoctoral positions.
Zhang has been a TAPPI student member for two years and is currently applying for the president position of the Washington State University TAPPI Student Chapter. His doctoral research focused on the application of barrier polymer materials into the advanced microwave thermal processing technology. During the past three years, he has collaborated extensively with many package manufacturers within the TAPPI PLACE division.He has also published and presented several papers regarding package-process interactions in various journals and conferences.
TAPPI and Mica Corporation are pleased to congratulate this promising young professional.
About TAPPI:
TAPPI is the leading association for the worldwide pulp, paper, packaging, tissue and converting industries and publisher of Paper360°, Tissue360° and TAPPI Journal. Through information exchange, events, trusted content and networking opportunities, TAPPI helps members elevate their performance by providing solutions that lead to better, faster and more cost-effective ways of doing business. It has provided management training and networking to the industry’s leaders for more than 100 years.For more information, visit TAPPI’s website.
About Mica Corporation:
Mica Corporation manufactures and supplies water-based, environmentally responsible products that offer adhesion or other properties to plastic, metal, and paper surfaces in continuous web applications.
