Philippe Cassagnau is the 2006 winner of the MORAND LAMBLA award of the PPS. He is professor of rheology and materials processing at the University of Lyon, FRANCE. He completed his PhD in 1998 on molecular dynamic mechanisms (double reptation) and rheology of polydisperse polymers. In 1988, he joined the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) where he directed research on polymer processing, and more particularly on reactive extrusion. He was appointed as Professor in 1999 at the University of Lyon, where he continued to develop his particular expertise in rheology and processing of reactive polymer systems.

More specifically, the research activities of Professor Philippe CASSAGNAU are at the crossroads of macromolecular chemistry, rheology, processing and structure development in reactive extrusion. Some key issues currently being investigated are the following:

• Predictive viscoelastic models based on molecular concepts for reactive extrusion. These models are able to predict the rheological behaviour of reactive systems (for example poly( -caprolactone)) in the bulk at any reaction time and under any processing conditions of temperature and shear rate.
• Development of new methodologies for the morphology development of polymer blends based on the concept of balance between the cooling time (or the cross-linking time) and the droplet rupture time. One part of this work is a new fundamental approach for the understanding of the morphology development in thermoplastic vulcanized (TPV) systems.
• Development of inverse rheological methods for the determination of the coefficient of diffusion of monomers or plasticizers in molten polymers. At the present time, this study is being extended to include aspects of mixing in reactive systems, coupling mixing at a molecular scale and reaction phenomena.

Philippe CASSAGNAU is the author of about 90 papers and about 130 contributions in international congresses.