Dr. Joseph Biesenberger
Polymer Processing Institute
Inducted 2024
Dr. Joseph A. Biesenberger (1935 – 1998) was best known as the founder of the Polymer Processing Institute at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. But he also was recognized as the top expert in the world on polymer devolatilization.
Biesenberger was an outstanding educator, an accomplished research scientist, and a pioneer in the application of basic chemical engineering principles to large-scale industrial plastics processing. He mentored thousands of engineering students that populate the plastics industry today.
Biesenberger earned his BS at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in 1957. He went on to Princeton where he earned 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 faculty of Stevens Institute 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 along with Dr. Luigi Pollara and Dr. Costas Gogos. The group served as 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 that is known and respected by polymer professionals worldwide.
Professor Biesenberger’s most important contribution to his profession was the creation of 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 with D. H. Sebastian the important and unique ‘Principles of Polymerization Engineering’. He later edited ‘Devolatilization of Polymers.’ He held two patents.