Bonnie Bachman

Bonnie Bachman is an experienced leader, researcher, and entrepreneur in the plastics industry.  She is currently leading the Technology Entrepreneurship Office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bachman brings a unique lifecycle approach to building entrepreneurial capacity for faculty and teams in STEM research.

Bachman is a Professor Emeriti from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, a past visiting professor at Beijing University, and she has also led R&D teams at Flextronics, Motorola, AT&T Bell Labs, Empak, and Lexmark.

Bonnie holds a B.S. in Physics from Benedictine University and a M.S. and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Rutgers University.  She is the recipient of numerous awards from the Missouri University of S&T, including the NSF Innovation Award, the Leavey Award for private enterprise education, and the University President’s Award for Innovative Teaching. 

In giving back to the industry, Bachmann served as the first female President of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) in 1994.  During that year of service, she also completed her PhD from Rutgers, so it was a busy year to say the least. 

Bonnie enjoys skydiving, mountain climbing, and is a supporter of the arts. She has been known to begin some of her university lectures with pop music. Bonnie is excited to be joining PPA and she is already engaged with the Education Committee.