Fiona Case

Fiona Case has more than 15 years' experience in the industrial applications of polymer and surfactant science. Her introduction to industrial polymer science was in the late 1980s at Courtaulds Research in the U.K., where she worked as part of the team developing Tencel, a new environmentally friendly solvent-spun cellulose fiber. She also investigated the effects of polyacrylonitrile microstructure on carbon fiber performance using early molecular and quantum mechanics computer modeling techniques. Case's involvement as a founding member of the Biosym/Molecular Simulations Inc. (MSI) Polymer Consortium, one of the earliest materials simulation efforts, meant frequent trips to sunny San Diego, California. In 1991 she moved to California to join Biosym. Case spent nine years at Biosym/MSI (now Accelrys). She carried out contract research for some of the top U.S. and European companies. As manager of the MSI training group, she prepared and presented more than 30 workshops worldwide on polymer science and molecular modeling. She also worked in marketing and technical sales support.

In 1999 she was hired into a central research group at Colgate Palmolive. This presented challenges, including materials structure and property prediction for toothpaste, detergent, hard surface care and personal care products, and packaging and fragrance technology. In 2003 Case left Colgate Palmolive to move to beautiful Vermont with her husband, Martin Case, and to found Case Scientific (www.casescientific.com), offering consultancy and contract research in soft nanotechnology, computational chemistry, and polymer and surfactant science. Case is a Chartered Chemist and a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the ACS, the American Oil Chemists Society, and the National Association of Science Writers.