The Forest Products Society Announces Winners of the 2020 Annual Excellence Awards

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May 20, 2020

2020 Annual Excellence Award Winners

The Forest Products Society Announces Winners of the 2020 Annual Excellence Awards

Please join us in congratulating these deserving recipients who will be recognized at the 2020 Virtual International Conference beginning July 27, 2020. Click here for the full PDF version of the full awards press release.

Fred W. Gottschalk Memorial Award

Maureen E. Puettmann, Ph.D.

The prestigious Fred W. Gottschalk Memorial Award , named for the first President of the Society, recognizes exceptional service to FPS by an individual member. The 2020 Gottschalk Award winner, Dr. Maureen Puettmann , has exhibited consistent commitment in serving the Forest Products Society since becoming a member 27 years ago. She has been involved in a number of strategic leadership roles at the National and Section levels. Puettmann previously served as FPS President in 2015 after being President-Elect (2014) and Vice President (2013).

Dr. Maureen Puettmann has been a member of FPS since 1986. She served on the Executive Committee from 2014-2018. Maureen has been actively involved in the NW Section over the years including the revitalization of the group since 2018. She has served as NW Section Newsletter “editor”. Maureen is owner of WoodLife Environmental Consultants, LLC since 2006 where she has been involved in over 50 life cycle assessments that document environmental profiles of forestry operations, wood products production, solid and liquid fuels, and biochar in North America. She received her B.S and M.S. in Wood Science from Oregon State University (1987/1990) and her PhD from the University of Minnesota in Forestry/Bio-materials (2000). Since 2017, Maureen took on the role of Director of Operations for the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials. Maureen maintains a courtesy appointment with Oregon State University, where she periodically teaches classes on LCA and has worked on 3 mass timber projects. In 2017 Maureen spent 6 months at Harvard Forest as a Bullard Fellow where she evaluated the carbon benefit and impacts of a small-scale wood heating system. She is married (Klaus Puettmann), has two adult sons, and enjoys walks with their dog and cat.

Wood Engineering Achievement Award

Arijit Sinha, Ph.D.

The Wood Engineering Achievement Award recognizes accomplishments and innovations in the discipline of wood engineering including structures, structural elements, building codes, consensus standards, design procedures and education.

The 2020 winner of the Wood Engineering Achievement Award is Dr. Arijit Sinha . Dr. Sinha is an Associate Professor of Renewable Materials in the Wood Science & Engineering Department at Oregon State University. His research is working to achieve sustainability in society, especially in the build environment by using intelligent and integrated design process, and developing renewable material based green products. He has mentored and advised numerous students and has publications in a wide variety of journals.

He has a long and close affiliation with FPS and was the Wood Award winner in 2010. He served on the Executive Committee for the FPS 2016 International Convention and chaired the FPS Wood Award Committee in 2017. In 2019, he took on the role of Associate Editor for Forest Products Journal.

Ari began his faculty career at OSU in 2011 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017. According to customary metrics of a faculty member, Ari is no less than stellar. As of December 2019, he has accumulated over $5.5 million in total funding with approximately one-third of this coming from external, competitive sources. He has published 60 refereed journal articles with over half of those including authors that were his graduate, undergraduate, or intern mentees. He has graduated thirteen MS students and four PhD students with four MS and four PhD students in-progress. Ari plays critical service roles in the Department and College, but more important is his external service where he serves as an Associate Editor for Wood and Fiber Science , is a board member for the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials, and was a long-time member of the Committee on Wood Education of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

L.J. Markwardt Award

The L.J. Markwardt Award recognizes the author(s) of a Forest Products Journal or Wood and Fiber Science technical paper published during the previous two years that has the most outstanding merit in the field of wood as an engineering material. This award encourages research and promotes knowledge of wood in the engineering field to enhance the efficient utilization of wood. This year, the selection was focused on Applied Engineering. The 2020 winning paper is:

“Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Compression Creep Behavior of Wood"

Authors: Wen Gang Hu and Huiyuan Guan, Nanjin Forestry University, China

The article was published in the Forest Products Journal , Vol. 68, 2018.

Wood Award

The Wood Award recognizes the most outstanding graduate student research conducted in the field of wood and wood products. Wood Award papers describe original research on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to harvesting and forest operations, product development and manufacture, fundamental properties, end-use applications, and distribution and marketing. The 2020 winners are:

First Place: Osei Asafu-Adjaye

Auburn University

“Development and Characterization of Wood Composites with Bio-oil in OSB”

Osei Asibe Asafu-Adjaye, is a Graduate Research Assistant and a PhD student at the Forest Products Development Center in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University. He holds MPhil in Wood Science and Technology, and BSc in Natural Resources Management with a major in Wood Science from the University of Science and Technology, Ghana. His research has focused on sustainable development of lesser utilized timber species and non-timber forest products. He is currently researching on developing formaldehyde free sustainable bio-based self-curing adhesives with broader applications in wood composite manufacturing.

Second Place: Saied Nikafshar

Michigan State University

“Studying Suitability of Different Lignins as Bisphenol-A Replacement in Epoxy Resins for Coating Applications”

Saeid Nikafshar is a third year PhD student at the Michigan State University, working under supervision of Dr. Mojgan Nejad. He obtained his master’s degree in applied chemistry from University of Tabriz, Iran in 2014. His master thesis was focused on increasing thermal, mechanical, and UV stability of epoxy resins. His PhD research projects are focused on developing lignin-based resins for application in coatings and adhesives. Saeid has multiple patents and publications on lignin valorization, replacing petroleum-based polyol in polyurethane resin, replacing toxic bisphenol A with lignin in epoxy resin, and improving weathering stability of coatings in exterior applications using encapsulated nano-clays.