Board of Directors

IAPRI Officers

Rolands's core research is on packaging decision making in the fields of sustainability, convenience, efficiency. He led the team at the University of Twente hosting the very successful IAPRI member conference in 2019.  He is also co-owner of Plato product consultants, an agency in structural packaging design.

Roland desire is to make the field of packaging (hopefully) a (little) bit more professional without disqualifying the work that has been done.

His goals for IAPRI include to show the outer world that packaging is a profession. Packaging is a serving entity that will never have the first attention. We must make sure that packaging is taken up in decisions about the product, about production, design, transport, costs, sustainability etc.

Various working groups of the Association of Dutch Packaging Experts is were Roland volunteers.

Jay enjoys an international reputation for research and consulting related to package design, distribution environment measurement and simulation, material and package testing, product-package compatibility validation, Life Cycle Assessment and Radio Frequency Identification applications for packaging. He has consulted with over 100 companies on various packaging research projects in the last 15 years in the automotive, pharmaceutical/medical device, food and beverage, furniture and several other consumer product categories.

Ed was President of the International Safe Transit Association (ISTA), serving in that capacity from 1995 until 2016. He is a graduate of the Michigan State University School of Packaging with both a Bachelor and Master of Science Degrees in Packaging. He is an IoPP Fellow and Lifetime Certified Packaging Professional and has an extensive background in transport packaging performance testing. He was one of the founders of Lansmont Corporation, including President. He is a member of the ASTM D-10 and F-2, and past board member of IAPRI. Church is a Past President and Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP) and is an Honorary Life Member.  He has been inducted into the National Packaging Hall of Fame and the MSU Packaging Hall of Fame. Ed is also the recipient of the ISTA 2016 R. David LeButt Award.

In his 50-year career in packaging, he has given over 100 conference presentations around the world. 

Ed became the Secretary General of IAPRI in January of 2018.

sg@iapri.org

Institutional Board Members

Péter Böröcz 

Associate Professor - Head of Packaging Laboratory at Széchenyi István University in Gyr, Hungary

Mieke Buntinx

Associate professor, Faculty of Engineering Technology, Hasselt University, Belgium
Staff member of Materials and Packaging Research & Services, Institute for Materials Research IMO-IMOMECl

Cristina Guzman is an associate professor at the Universidad de Monterrey, she is an Industrial Designer with a Ph.D. at Michigan State University. She has been an entrepreneur and had 28 years in Academics.

Cristina has specialized in the R&D of new products, both at the academic and industrial levels, and collaborates with the research center ABRE-UDEM as an Industrial Consultant and trainer in packaging Innovation. She has national and international publications, is part of three international editorial councils, and belongs to several organizations: IAPRI  since 2007, ISTA IOPP, AMEE, FDRS, WDO, DI-Integra.

On IAPRI is Involved on working groups of sustainable packaging, packaging, and consumers, active and intelligent packaging. Was the organizer of the 22nd IAPRI World Congress 2020 -Online. Cristina believes research and industry need to work together and it is the reason why she collaborated with Academy meets Industry project (AMI). 

Laszlo has a Ph.D. in Forest Biomaterials Science from North Carolina State University, two Master of Science degrees and a BS from the University of West Hungary.

He leads the Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design which is a research and testing center focusing on developing innovative technologies and information to optimize the global distribution of goods. Laszlo is an expert in pallet and unit load design and the industrial design sector.

As an Associate Professor, his teaching focuses on protective and industrial packaging to undergraduate level students and advanced packaging dynamics for graduate students. His research is focused on the investigation of the physical interactions between the components of unit load and increasing the sustainability of the packaging supply chain through more efficient distribution packaging design.

He participates in ISO, ASTM, and ANSI working groups and committees and as a US delegate to the ISO.

Laszlo is one of the few Packaging Laboratory Professionals that hold the Professional level certificates. Laszlo was also awarded the Best Scientific Presentation Award in 2017 at the 28th IAPRI Symposium on Packaging.

Term 2023-2026

Marit has attended IAPRI conferences almost every other year since 2005. She has participated on scientific committees, and an active participant in Communities of Practice.
 
As a researcher at Nofima, her focus has been applied research within food packaging. This includes material science, food quality, interaction food/packaging. - with a focus on sustainability and challenges and issues related to packaging. She has been a project manager of several national research programs as well as EU projects, often with involvements of the industry. She has a strong connection to the industry and potential to identify their challenges and needs.

She believes that IAPRI is an important global scientific network, and it highly encourages her to be a part of the future packaging and to be able to help to define/design the role of IAPRI for the future. I would like to participate in promoting the importance of packaging in relation to sustainability. The goals of IAPRI should be sustainability – not just in words but in practice. 

Eric Martine

Head of Packaging Laboratory, School of Engineering and Management Vaud (HEIG-VD), Switzerland

Eric had a BSc in Instrumentation & Measurement from Sheffield Hallam University in England and a Packaging Engineering Degree (ESIEC) from Rheims University in France.

As Head of the Packaging Laboratory, managers all activities of the lab including strategy development, budgeting, research, and the staff. He brings to the board a strong scientific knowledge and skills (especially in the field of the performances and choice of packaging) as well as a global overview of the field of packaging.

He has attended most IAPRI events since 2006. He was a co-organizer of the 28^th IAPRI Member Conference held in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2017 with Nestle Research Center. Eric is involved with many other packaging organizations, including Cluster Food and Nutrition, Swiss Plastics Cluster, Schweizer Verpackung Institute, and  Active and Intelligent Packaging Industry Association.

Eric wants to actively promote and develop IAPRI more globally.  He wants to assist IAPRI to new opportunities to organize (new types of) international events to promote the field of packaging in relation to current and future challenges. 

Johanna Lahti
Senior Scientist,
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Sustainable Materials and Products, Finland

Has been an active member since 2019 through Tampere University (TAU) and changed in 2022 to VTT. She has a lot of experience in academic research and education at different levels - BSc, MSc and doctoral levels at different universities, with experience in supervising students and thesis works.

Johanna has given presentations at conferences and educational events, having worked on many different types of projects. This has given her quite a large network in the field of packaging. In addition, her research has always been very close to industry, so she also has good contacts in relevant industries.

Serving on the board, she wants to contribute to development of packaging education and to promote the research in packaging field, because there are lot of different things that could be developed in the packaging sector, but it requires collaboration between different parties. Supporting researchers and education in the packaging field is important.

Vincent Rouillard

Professor in Mechanical Engineering, Victoria University, Australia 

Corporate Member Board Members

Eric Joneson

Vice President of Technology, Lansmont Corporation, USA

IAPRI Past Presidents

Secretary Generals