Alex Penlidis, PhD, PEng

Alexander Penlidis is a Chemical Engineering Professor at the University of Waterloo. He has held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Engineering of Polymers with Tailor-Made Properties in 2002-2016. He is the founding co-editor and editor for the "Polymer Reaction Engineering Journal" and also served as the Associate Director and Director for the Institute for Polymer Research from 1991 to 2010.
His long-term goal is to promote in parallel interdisciplinary research for polymers with advanced technology applications. These applications would be geared towards health, biological polymers, polymeric sensors, polymeric materials for photonics, and polymeric materials for a variety of civil engineering applications.
Professor Penlidis’ current projects include kinetics and modelling of multicomponent bulk, solution, suspension and emulsion polymerizations; development of flexible simulator packages for polymerization processes; and dynamic optimization of polymer reactor operation, polymer reactor pilot-plant instrumentation and automation. He is also working on online multivariable non-linear model predictive control of polymerization reactors; high temperature terpolymerizations and depropagation studies, as well as nano-structured particle technology.
Professor Penlidis has made outstanding research accomplishments, culminating in the 1993 Canadian Society of Chemical Engineering Albright and Wilson Americas Award, for distinguished contributions in chemical engineering before the age of 40. Additionally in 2002, he was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (FCAE), the highest engineering honour in the country. Within the University of Waterloo, he has been recognized with a University Teaching award, a Research Innovation award, and a Graduate Student Supervision award. In light of his impressive work, Professor Penlidis has attracted more than $18,000,000 in research funding. He has more than 350 publications and has completed 160 senior undergraduate design projects, 53 MASc graduate students, 17 post-doctoral fellows, 40 research engineers/associates, and 33 PhD students, 13 of whom are in academia, and all gainfully employed in industry/government jobs, including their own companies.

• polymeric materials, Polymer Science, polymer reaction engineering, Process Systems Engineering, polymer property modification, structure-property relationships, polymer production technology, emulsion polymerization, polymer reactor modelling, polymerization kinetics, Advanced Manufacturing

See my research keywords.

See my research keywords. Considerable long-term interactions with industry.

• 1986, Doctorate (PhD), Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
• 1980, Diploma of Engineering (5 years), Chemical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

• 1983 Teaching Award as a TA, McMaster University
• 1993 CSChE Albright & Wilson Americas Award (for distinguished contributions in chemical engineering before the age of 40)
• 1994 Distinguished Teacher Award, University-wide, University of Waterloo
• 1994 Chemical Institute of Canada Fellow (FCIC)
• 2002 Tier I Canada Research Chair (CRC), 2002-2009
• 2002 Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering (FCAE)
• 2004 Teaching Excellence Award, Faculty of Engineering and Sandford Fleming Foundation, University of Waterloo
• 2004 Outstanding Performance Award, University of Waterloo
• 2007 Outstanding Performance Award, University of Waterloo
• 2009 Tier I Canada Research Chair (CRC), 2009-2016
• 2009 Award of Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision, University of Waterloo
• 2011 En-Hui Yang Engineering Innovation Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo

• Associate Director, Institute for Polymer Research (IPR), University of Waterloo, 1991-1995
• Director, Institute for Polymer Research (IPR), University of Waterloo, 1995-2010
• Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies, Faculty of Engineering, 1998-2004
• Founding co-editor and editor for the "Polymer Reaction Engineering Journal" (1989-2003)
• Served in almost every committee within the University of Waterloo (1986-todate)
• Offered industrial intensive short courses on several aspects of polymerization and polymer engineering (1983-todate)
• Regular refereeing for scientific journals (15-25 publications per year)
• Editorial board member (3 journals)
• Reviewer of funding applications/adjudicator (on regular basis)
• Conference organizer

• Canadian Society of Chemical Engineering (CSChE), Fellow
• Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC), Fellow
• Association of Professional Engineers, Ontario (PEng, PEO)
• Association of Professional Engineers (Greece)
• Canadian Academy of Engineering (FCAE), Fellow

• CHE 225 - Strategies for Process Improvement and Product Development
  • Taught in 2023
• CHE 425 - Strategies for Process Improvement and Product Development
  • Taught in 2020, 2022, 2023
• CHE 543 - Polymer Production: Polymer Reaction Engineering
  • Taught in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
• CHE 621 - Model Building and Response Surface Methodology
  • Taught in 2021, 2022, 2024
• CHE 640 - Principles of Polymer Science
  • Taught in 2020

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Amintowlieh, Y., C. Tzoganakis and A. Penlidis (2013). Polypropylene with improved strain hardening characteristics. May 2013; 61/854,188 US provisional patent application. Refiled as ‘Polypropylene with improved strain hardening characteristics and long chain branching with UV irradiation’, April 16, 2014; serial # 61/995,627 (USPTO); revised in Dec 2016; Finally accepted: Method for modifying polyolefin to increase long chain branching; Patent no.: US 9,982,099 B2; Date: May 29, 2018; 76 pgs; 29 claims, 50 drawing sheets.