Board of Directors

Roland ten Klooster

President, IAPRI

Chair of the Packaging Design and Management program at University of Twente in The Netherlands

Jay Singh

Immediate Past President, IAPRI

Professor, Packaging Program Director, Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, California, USA

Edward A. Church

Secretary General, IAPRI

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

+1 517-657-9200

Mieke is bio-engineer in chemistry with a strong interest in R&D of sustainable, smart and safe packaging. As professor, she motivates young engineers of UHasselt, KU Leuven and UGhent to study and tackle current and future packaging challenges. The MPR&S team has built expertise in gas permeability, physical-mechanical material characterization, impact of environmental variables, seal technologies, etc.

Mieke is promotor of PhD research on functional barriers such as EVOH that can protect against migration, and on modeling process, structure, property and migration relationships in functionalized biopolymer nanocomposites, which are produced by extrusion and injection molding, centrifugal fiber spinning, ultrasonic spray coating, compression molding. She’s very open to collaboration with the industry and other research institutes including Pack4Food, Fraunhofer IIV, ... in applied research projects, e.g. intelligent fiber-based packaging. On the board, Mieke wants to continue to promote international networking and student exchange.

She wants IAPRI to motivate engineers and scientists to help solve packaging challenges in a circular economy.

Laszlo Horvath

Associate Professor, Director - Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design, Virginia Tech, USA

Vincent has a PhD from Monash University and he has been involved in packaging research for nearly three decades. Vincent leads the Engineered Packaging and Distribution Research Group at Victoria University which is aimed at increasing the overall effectiveness of protective packaging, reducing the environmental impact of packaging and minimizing packaging waste. He teaches a variety of Engineering units such as Vibrations, Dynamics, Computing and Experimentation as well as Engineering Modelling and Analysis. His main research interests deal with the measurement, analysis and simulation of non-stationary and non-Gaussian random processes. His efforts have involved the characterization and simulation of environmental shock and vibration with application to transport dynamics including pavement topography and the dynamic interaction between pavements, vehicles and products during transportation.

He is an associate editor of the Journal of Packaging Technology and Science, the foundation chair of the IAPRI Working Group for Distribution Packaging, a member of the Technical Board of the International Safe Transit Association and a member of the ASTM International Committee on Packaging. He has held visiting positions at Monash University, Cambridge University, DSTO and the Spanish Institute for Packaging, Transport & Logistics (ITENE).

 Jun Wang

Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Packaging Engineering at Jiangnan University, China  

Jun is the technical director of National packaging testing center, Secretary General of several organizations including the Professional Committee of China Packaging Institutes. Involved in IAPRI events since 2008's conference held in Thailand, he presented for the first time in 2010 at the conference held in Tianjin. At Zhuhai's IAPRI conference 2018, he co-organized the first event to feature a trial Academia Meets Industry session.

He has consulted for over 50 brand owners and packaging suppliers all over the world with China market. He is also the editorial board member of Packaging Technology and Science.

Selcuk Yildirim, Ph.D.

Professor, in food packaging at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland.

Dr. Yildirim is the IAPRI Active and Intelligent Packaging Working Group Chair and is very involved in collaborative research projects in EU programs and has strong connections to industry. His focus is on the global challenges and issues related to the packaging (food waste, packaging safety, plastic waste, sustainability.

Selcuk thinks IAPRI is the most important scientific network in the area of packaging that brings the scientist and the industry in this field together and facilitate scientific exchange for research and teaching. He hopes with his   experiences   he can contribute to strengthen this exchange and the collaboration, especially collaboration between the scientific community and industry.

Eric has a BS in Packaging from Michigan State University is a subject matter expert in the areas of supply chain environmental measurement, analysis and development of directly associated laboratory testing applications. He has over 30 of experience in various roles with Lansmont including eleven years managing dynamic laboratory testing facilities.

Eric has actively participated in group research efforts that resulted in new, or modified industry test standards with ISTA, ASTM, and ISO. He has served on the ISTA Board of Directors, including as Chair

He serves as Lansmonts professional Liaison with the higher education and research communities which has included numerous guest lectures at Packaging Universities and over 20 years of active participation in global Packaging research events and conferences

Eric has been very active with IAPRI for many years as well as ISTA, ASTM D10 on Packaging and EUMOS.