Covestro recently announced that Karsten Danielmeier, Ph.D., currently head of growth businesses in the company’s Coatings and Adhesives Business Entity, will become president of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) on January 1, 2022. With around 30,000 members, the society is one of the largest chemical scientific associations in the world.

Danielmeier was elected as future president by the incumbent GDCh board at the board meeting on August 30, 2021. He will succeed Peter R. Schreiner, Ph.D., who held the position for two years and has now been elected as one of the vice presidents. The presidium is completed by GDCh board member and economic chemist Katharina Uebele. Timo Fleßner, Ph.D., Bayer AG, was confirmed in his position as treasurer.

The new committee reportedly has a lot of plans for the next term of office. In particular, it wants to breathe even more life into the three guiding principles of the society, with a focus on digitization, diversity, and internationalization, and thus also continue the course it has taken in recent years to drive the modernization of the GDCh forward.

“We can be truly proud of what the GDCh has achieved and what it represents, but we also want to support the changes in society and science and thus play an active role in shaping the future of the GDCh,” Danielmeier said.

Danielmeier studied at the University of Bonn, where he received his doctorate in synthetic organic chemistry in 1995. The following year, he joined Bayer AG, where he was active in numerous positions of increasing responsibility in raw materials research for coatings and adhesives in Germany and the U.S. Most recently, he headed research for the Functional Films division in Leverkusen and was senior vice president for Research and Development in the Coatings, Adhesives, Specialties segment at Covestro from 2015-2021. He has been a member of the GDCh board since July 2020 and had previously served for several years on the scientific planning committee of the Coatings Chemistry division.

Additional information about Covestro is available at www.covestro.com. Learn more about the GDCh at www.gdch.de/home.html.