Dr. Joseph Biesenberger
Polymer Processing Institute
Inducted 2024
Dr. Joseph A. Biesenberger (1935 – 1998) is best known as the founder of the Polymer Processing Institute at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was also recognized as the top expert in the world on polymer devolatilization.
Biesenberger was an outstanding educator, an accomplished research scientist, and a pioneer in applying basic chemical engineering principles to large-scale industrial plastics processing. He mentored thousands of engineering students who populate the plastics industry today.
Biesenberger earned his BS at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in 1957. He then went to Princeton, earning his master’s and doctorate in chemical engineering. He did postdoctoral studies in Milan, Italy, with Nobel Laureate Professor Julio Natta.
Biesenberger returned to the U.S. in 1971 to join the Stevens Institute faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. He advanced to associate professor and full professor and was chairman of the chemical engineering department from 1971-1978. During his tenure, he raised the status of the Polymer and Chemical Engineering Programs at Stevens to an internationally recognized level.
In 1982, Biesenberger cofounded the Polymer Processing Institute (PPI) at Stevens with Dr. Luigi Pollara and Dr. Costas Gogos. The group was an independent, nonprofit industrial consulting corporation with extensive laboratory facilities on both campuses. After his passing, PPI moved to NJIT.
Biesenberger served as president of PPI from 1989 to 1995. He worked with Harold Wrede, chairman of PPI’s Board of Trustees, to create a unique research organization known and respected by polymer professionals worldwide.
Professor Biesenberger’s most important contribution to his profession was creating the field of reactive polymer processing, the result of his combining polymerization reaction engineering with polymer processing. Biesenberger made hundreds of presentations and published more than 150 books and papers. In 1983, he authored the important and unique Principles of Polymerization Engineering with D. H. Sebastian. He later edited ‘Devolatilization of Polymers.’ He held two patents.