Sindee Lou Simon is an American

chemical engineer In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional, equipped with the knowledge of chemical engineering, who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the ...

and polymer physicist who studies the

glass transition The glass–liquid transition, or glass transition, is the gradual and reversible transition in amorphous materials (or in amorphous regions within semicrystalline materials) from a hard and relatively brittle "glassy" state into a viscous or rubb ...

, thermosetting polymers, and nanoconfinement. Her research has included studies of ancient

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Ma ...

, showing that unlike liquids glass does not flow. She is the head of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...

Education and career

Simon grew up in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...

, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a technical salesman for the aircraft industry; she was directed towards chemical engineering by a high school mathematics teacher. She became an undergraduate at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, where she competed in the Yale swimming team, serving as captain of the team for two years, and was named an

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...

n for 1982 by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America for the backstroke in

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

. After graduating, she worked for four years at the

Beech Aircraft Corporation Beechcraft is an American brand of civil aviation and military aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of Beech Aircraft Corporation, an American manufacturer of general aviati ...

, on the materials science behind their first

composite aircraft A composite aircraft is made up of multiple ''component'' craft. It takes off and flies initially as a single aircraft, with the components able to separate in flight and continue as independent aircraft.Harper (1937) Typically the larger aircraf ...

. She went to

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

for graduate study, completing her Ph.D. in 1992. She joined the faculty at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

as an assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering in 1992, before moving to

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

in 1999. The move solved a

two-body problem In classical mechanics, the two-body problem is to predict the motion of two massive objects which are abstractly viewed as point particles. The problem assumes that the two objects interact only with one another; the only force affecting each ...

for her and her husband, chemical engineer Gregory B. McKenna, who moved from the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

to Texas Tech at the same time. At Texas Tech, she was department chair for chemical engineering from 2012 to 2019. She moved again, to

, in 2021.

Recognition

Simon was named a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of American Physic ...

(APS) in 2010, after a nomination from the APS Division of Polymer Physics, "for pioneering contributions to the understanding of the thermal and mechanical properties of bulk and nanostructured polymeric glasses". She also became a fellow of the North American Thermal Analysis Society in 2003, of the Society of Plastics Engineers in 2005, and of the

American Institute of Chemical Engineers The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is a professional organization for chemical engineers. AIChE was actually established in 1908 to distinguish chemical engineers as a profession independent of chemists and mechanical engineer ...

in 2015. She was named P. W. Horn Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech in 2010. She was the 2014 winner of the Mettler Toledo Outstanding Achievement of the North American Thermal Analysis Society, and the 2019 winner of the International Award of the Society of Plastics Engineers, the first woman to win the society's highest award.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Simon, Sindee Year of birth missing (living people) Living people People from Wichita, Kansas American female backstroke swimmers American chemical engineers American women engineers Yale University alumni University of Pittsburgh faculty Texas Tech University faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers 21st-century American women