Chairman of the Board of Directors
 

Landon Mertz, Chief Executive Officer of Cerion Nanomaterials

Landon Mertz is the Chief Executive Officer of Cerion Nanomaterials and is a member of its Board of Directors. Under his leadership, he has overseen a period of expansive business growth and investment into innovations to make advanced expertise in custom nanomaterial design & manufacturing both accessible and cost-effective for use by industry.

Throughout his 10+ year tenure with Cerion, Landon has been frequently recognized for his work to advance the growth and maturity of the nanomaterial community. An active member and participant in industry groups, he is a passionate champion of the critical concepts for successful commercialization of products utilizing nanomaterials and is frequently featured as a keynote speaker and contributor to industry publications.

Landon has over twenty years of experience building and monetizing new, innovative businesses across a diverse number of industries. Previously he was the Chief Operating Officer of Festival Network, a firm who develops and acquires large-scale consumer entertainment events across the globe. Prior to that he was the Chief Executive Officer of Intermedia, an experiential event marketing firm that produces events, meetings and conferences on behalf of Fortune 500 and 1000 companies. Landon is currently Chair of NIA's Board of Directors.

Board Members

Dr Richard Berry, Vice President & Chief Technology Officer of Celluforce, Retired

Leader of the nanotechnology initiative at FPInnovations until moving to CelluForce in 2011, Dr. Berry has numerous scientific accomplishments and a long experience for overseeing the industrial application of his numerous inventions. He received the 2009 Nano-industry award from NanoQuébec for his exceptional contribution to the development of Nanocrystalline Cellulose. He is the winner of the 2012 Purvis Memorial Award, is one of Canada’s Clean 50 honourees and most recently was honoured with the first TAPPI Nanotechnology Division Award and IMERYS prize. The initiatives Dr. Berry has spearheaded in recent years have allowed Canada to position itself as a world leader in the development of this new nanotechnology industry.

Dr. Berry has taught numerous courses for TAPPI and PAPTAC, and chaired the 2000 International Pulp Bleaching Conference in Halifax Canada.  He has received many pulp and paper Industry awards and is a TAPPI Fellow. Berry also holds more than 30 patent families, and his work has been published in more than 100 articles and 5 chapters in monographs.

Dr Ishrat Chaudhuri, DABT (Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology), Senior Principal Toxicologist at Cabot Corporation

As a regulatory toxicologist, Dr. Chaudhuri is involved in implementing risk reduction strategies for existing and new chemical products, ensuring that chemicals are safely handled by workers and consumers, ensuring that products comply with national and international regulations, and that toxicology concerns are considered when determining which chemicals will be developed for commercial applications. She is involved in commercialization of new products including the placement of toxicology studies, interpretation of related data and the submission of new substance notifications, such as Pre-Manufacture Notifications (PMNs) under TSCA and EU REACH registrations. She provides leadership on internal committees/teams on product stewardship and regulatory affairs, and external trade group organizations such as the International Carbon Black Association.  She has participated as an expert on nanotoxicology on regulatory programs developed by the European Chemicals Agency. Prior to her position with Cabot Corporation, Dr. Chaudhuri worked for 18 years at environmental consulting companies where she conducted human health risk evaluations, consumer product evaluations, and toxicology assessments for various environmental and consumer chemicals. She also provided litigation support, and expert witness support in toxic tort cases.  She has presented at various scientific conferences and has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles.

Dr Francesca Peditto, Global Product Stewardship, Solvay.

Francesca has been Solvay Silica Global Product Stewardship for 3 years, managing the Global Business Unit regulatory needs of commercial and research products across the different regions. 

Prior to this role, Francesca was Senior Scientist in Solvay Silica for 9 years, acting as Lab Manager and in 2016 became Global Business Development Manager for the Consumers and Industrial Goods segment of Solvay Silica. In this role she led several research and innovation projects with global key accounts.

Francesca has a degree in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Torino (Italy) and a PhD in Material Science from the INSA Lyon (France).

Dr Allen Reid, Commercial Director, NANOGAP

Allen Reid has been Commercial Director of NANOGAP for 15 years, responsible for strategy, business development  and aligning R&D activities with the needs of the business. In that time, NANOGAP has successfully developed its core Metal-Molecule technology for diverse applications including novel catalysts for renewable hydrogen and syngas production as well as waste water remediation and therapeutic applications. From this work, two spin-out companies have been created, hysun is developing a process for production of 100% renewable hydrogen and Arjuna Therapeutics is developing treatments for cancer and other therapeutic applications.

Prior to joining NANOGAP, Allen spent 4 years as Business Development Director at NanoCentral at the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI). NanoCentral was a UK Government funded project, a value-chain spanning network of nanomaterial and nanotechnology companies created for collaboration and to accelerate the commercialisation of nanomaterials.

Prior to NanoCentral, Allen spent 11 years at specialty chemical company Elementis, in various technical and commercial roles in the UK and the US, including Technical Manager, Zinc Products, and Commercial Development Manager, Innovation Group. In these roles he was responsible for technical development and business development of products including nano zinc oxide used in industrial and consumer products.

Allen has a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Glasgow and also spent 4 years a post-doctoral researcher at the School of Materials, University of Leeds.