Dr Katrina Cornish

Dr. Katrina Cornish serves as Endowed Chair and Ohio Research Scholar, Bioemergent Materials, and as Research Director, Program of Excellence in Natural Rubber Alternatives, at The Ohio State University. Cornish is an internationally recognized expert and innovator in alternative natural rubber/latex crops, their latex, solid rubber, and coproduct processing and formulation technologies, biodegradable and recyclable rubbers and bioplastics, valorization of wastes, and product and device innovation and development. She is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. Her career spanning federal, academic and industrial appointments has resulted in ~35 issued or pending patents, many with student and staff coinventors, over 300 published papers, numerous worldwide lectures and a history of considerable public and private funding. She is co-founder of several alternative natural rubber companies intended to increase the geographical and biological diversity of the natural rubber supply. Her research has been recognized my numerous awards, including The Ohio State University’s 2018 Innovator of the Year, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Bioenvironmental Polymer Society and the Association for the Advancement of Industrial Crops. Dr. Cornish holds a BSc (1st class honours) in Biological Sciences, and a Ph.D. in Plant Biology, both from the University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, England.