CAPP is directed by João Maia, a Professor at the Department of MacromolecularScience and Engineering of Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Maia was born in 1970, in Barreiro, Portugal. He graduated in Technological Physics Engineering from the Technical University of Lisbon in 1992 and obtained his PhD Degree in Rheology from the University of Wales Aberystwyth in 1996, under the supervision of Professor Ken Walters, FRS. Between 1996 and September 2009 he was faculty at the University of Minho, Portugal and since October 2009 he’s been with the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering of Case Western Reserve University. Since November 2011 he is the Director of CAPP – Center for Advanced Polymer Processing, of CWRU.

His main research interests lie in the areas of rheology applied to polymer processing, with an emphasis on the development of new functional multiphase polymeric materials, e.g. blends and composites, on-line sensoring of extrusion and compounding, and extensional rheology.

He has published more than 300 scientific works, including 8 patents, more than 80 papers in international refereed journals and more than 200 communications to International Conferences, of which more than 20 were Invited/Plenary/keynotes. He was a Fulbright Fellow in 2007 and received the 2010 Annual Award of the British Society of Rheology and the 2011 Morand Lambla Award of the Polymer Processing Society, the latter the highest honor of the PPS. He was the organizer and Co-Chairman of the XVIth International Congress on Rheology held in Lisbon, Portugal in August 2012.

He currently leads five scientific R&D projects and another twelve in cooperation with industry, for a total funding in excess of $5,000,000. His research group is currently constituted by three post-doctoral researchers, fifteen PhD students and several undergraduate students.

In addition to Professor Maia and his research group, CAPP draws resources as required from both the physical infrastructure and from other faculty members of the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, one of the premier Polymer departments in the country, and from the highly specialized Human Resources of Thermo Fisher Scientific.