Name:
Victoria Finkenstadt
Country:
United States
City:
East Peoria
State/Province:
IL
ACS Member:
true
Local Section:
Illinois Heartland
International Chapter:
Technical Division Membership:
Professional Relations Division,Agricultural & Food Chemistry Division
Technical Division Membership Emeritus:
Subdivision Member:
ACS Activities:
Web Adminsitrator for Illinois Heartland ACS (http://membership.acs.org/p/peoria) and Agricutural and Food Chemistry AGFD (http://membership.acs.org/a/agfd)
Company/Institution Name:
Career Stage:
Professional
Research and Special Interests:
Dr. Victoria Finkenstadt is a research scientist in the Plant Polymer Research Unit at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (USDA) in Peoria, IL since 1998. She earned her doctorate from the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research at Purdue University in 1997. Her doctoral dissertation involved structure-function properties of polysaccharides. She received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from McPherson College (Kansas) in 1989. She has worked in the pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences in both quality control and R&D before entering graduate school. Her research projects involve polymer chemistry, advanced material engineering, value-added product development from agricultural commodities and theoretical investigations into polymer systems. Current projects include starch-graft-copolymers by reactive extrusion, electroactive bioplastics, and biodegradable polymer composites.
Dr. Finkenstadt received a "40 Leaders under Forty" award in 2005. Dr. Finkenstadt is very active in the American Chemical Society at the local, regional, and national levels. Under her leadership, the Illinois Heartland Local Section of the American Chemical Society has received nine consecutive Outstanding Performance Awards (1999-2007).
Area of Expertise:
polymeric materials and composites, agricultural polymers, renewable resources, sustainability, biodegradable materials, reactive extrusion, electroactive polymers, proton exchange membranes, corrosion inhibition
Years of Expertise:
11-15