Paula Moldenaers

KU Leuven

Chemical Engineer

Fellow, Elected 2016

Paula Moldenaers is currently full professor and head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Professor Moldenaers received a Master’s Degree in 1980 and a Ph.D. in 1987, both in Chemical Engineering from KU Leuven. Since receiving her degree, she has been actively involved in rheological research. She began her academic career at KU Leuven in 1987 as a research associate and joined the teaching staff in 1992 as an associate professor, becoming a full professor in 1998. She was the head of the SMaRT (Soft Matter, Rheology and Technology) Division from 2003 until becoming the head of the Department of Chemical Engineering in 2013.

Professor Moldenaers’ research interests focus principally on the rheology and morphology development in complex polymeric systems, especially two-phase polymeric blends, filled polymers, and polymeric liquid crystals. Liquid crystalline polymers (LCPs) were the subject of her early work. She mapped out the strong shear history effects and transient behavior of LCPs using suitable flow protocols and was the first to demonstrate “strain scaling” in their rheological response. Her collaborative work with the group of G. Marrucci (Naples) using LCPs resulted in experimental identification of flow regimes for director tumbling and “wagging”, as well as a procedure to separate hydrodynamic and thermodynamic contributions to the total stress. She has also extensively studied two-phase polymer blends, developing a description of the rheology of polymer blends in terms of droplet morphology. This data provided the first experimental confirmation of the Choi-Schowalter analysis for normal stresses in emulsions. She has also investigated compatibilization of two-phase polymer blends and showed that not only changes in interfacial tension, but also Marangoni stresses must be included to describe the resulting coalescence suppression. Recently she has researched the rheology of complex food products, such as plant-based tissue and dough, with the intention of providing a rational, science-based methodology for the processing of such complex fluids. Her research has resulted in over 300 scientific publications, with over 5000 citations. She has been involved in many scientific organizations including The Society of Rheology, the British Society of Rheology, the Groupe Français de Rhéologie, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the International Polymer Processing Society, the Belgian Group of Rheology, of which she was the President from 1995 to 2000, and the Belgian Polymer Group. She was the Secretary of the 1992 International Congress on Rheology and has been a member of the International Committee on Rheology. She is currently the Belgian representative to the International Polymer Processing Society and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Rheological Society. Additionally, she has served on several editorial boards, including the Journal of Rheology, Rheologica Acta, and the Journal for Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics. In recognition of her contributions to the field of rheology, Professor Moldenaers has been the recipient of the Annual Award of the British Society of Rheology in 1991, the Exxon Chemical Science and Engineering Award in 1992, and two-time recipient of the Publication Award of The Society of Rheology for the years of 1997 and 2008.