Newly promoted director, Dr Cynthia A Gosselin, accepts ASTM Award in Toronto

The ChemQuest Group, Inc., a leading business strategy firm in specialty chemicals, is delighted to announce that Dr Cynthia A Gosselin has been awarded the ASTM International’s Kenneth J Boedecker, Jr Distinguished Service Award for her leadership role as an officer within Committee A05’s Technical Subcommittee A05.11 on Coated Sheet Specifications.

The Kenneth J. Boedecker, Jr. Distinguished Service Award is the highest award that can be given to a member of Committee A05 on Metallic Coated Iron & Steel Products. Established in 1998, this award recognises exemplary leadership and significant technical contributions such as organising a new field of standards activity or strategic direction, authoring new standards or major revisions to A05 standards, as well as the co-ordination of interlaboratory test programmes and conducting key research.

A Materials Engineer by training, Dr Cynthia Gosselin has more than 30 years of international experience in the development, testing and product introduction of coil-coated steel and aluminum, removable and permanent thin film organic coatings, acrylic pretreatments, and diesel emission component technologies through technical positions at Armco/AK Steel Research, Arvin Industries, TecCoat and Cummins Emission Solutions. Cynthia holds process patents for the application of removable and permanent thin film organic coatings and diesel emission component technology. She has authored or co-authored numerous papers relating to polymeric biomaterials, surface analysis, pre-painted steel, non-destructive pretreatment analysis techniques and corrosion performance of painted materials.

On the business side, Dr Gosselin executed an on-site pilot program in India to accelerate product development capability within a design-house organisation, served as the industrial liaison for the Future Truck Program at Cornell University, was an industrial advisory council member for the University of Cincinnati Materials Science Department while providing leadership for product quality improvements within several coil coating operations.

Since 2015, Dr Gosselin has made important contributions to ChemQuest’s client-sponsored projects and has remained active in the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) while also holding officer roles within ASTM and regularly contributing to Coil World Magazine. Additionally, Cynthia has remained active in coil coating initiatives through her chairmanship of ASTM D01.53, which liaises with the National Coil Coating Association (NCCA) for specification development and various types of equipment testing for precision and bias statements.

Prior to joining ChemQuest, as the Director of Emerging Technology for TecCoat from 2013 to 2015, Dr Gosselin evaluated unique non-chromium pretreatment and passivation technologies to move toward full commercialisation, emphasising co-operative analysis projects with paint companies and steel mills. From 2011 to 2013, as the Technical Director of First American Resources, Cynthia led the team responsible for prepainted product quality, claim resolution, vendor initiatives, root cause analysis, new product development and laboratory testing.

Dr Gosselin holds a BS in Materials Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as an MS and Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Cincinnati. In 2005, she earned a Certificate in Systems Design and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

How does Cynthia sum up her whirlwind week of accepting a distinguished industry award and promotion? Cynthia is "very thankful to ChemQuest for the promotion from senior consultant to director and likewise humbled to have been selected as this year’s recipient of the Kenneth J. Boedecker, Jr. Distinguished Service Award.” With a nod to the future Dr. Gosselin is "eager to hit the ground running in my new leadership role at ChemQuest assisting our clients with value creation.” ChemQuest President/CEO Dan Murad has "every confidence that Dr Gosselin’s technical expertise and admirable work ethic will be immeasurably valuable to the ChemQuest Group and its Technology Institute in South Boston, VA, as the trend of consolidation raises the stakes and redefines corporations, stakeholders and market dominance.”