The WACKER ACADEMY Team of Instructors
Theoretical expertise and practical experience are the cornerstones of the WACKER ACADEMY team. With backgrounds in sales or technology, our experts come to the table with extensive application knowledge. They are also trained instructors and moderators with a sixth sense for current trends and market developments.
Instructors for Adhesives
Jesús Acuña
Jesús is WACKER POLYMERS’ sales manager for the Andean region. He joined WACKER in 2015 after working for Esenttia as senior R&D engineer for polypropylene. Jesús is a chemical engineer and holds an MS degree (specializing in polymers). He is currently responsible for WACKER POLYMERS’ sales and market development in the construction, adhesives and coatings industries in Colombia and Ecuador.
Gerardo Bautista
Gerardo is a chemical engineer from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where he holds a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering (with Bioengineering as a focus). He has more than 7 years’ chemical-industry experience of technical sales for industrial applications, personal care, the household sector and now construction. He joined WACKER in 2015 as sales manager for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Gerardo provides support to construction customers in the following markets: paints, coatings, maintenance and general construction. Also, he has participated as a speaker for associations such as Mexico’s ANAFAPYT (representing paint and printing ink manufacturers), where WACKER has a presence.
Frank Dai
Frank Dai joined WACKER in 2018 as a senior technical engineer, responsible for the technical application of HDK® pyrogenic silica products in Eastern China. He has been engaged in R&D relating to HDK product application in coatings, adhesives and composites.
Cheryl Fan
Cheryl Fan is a senior technical manager at the WACKER Shanghai technical center and is in charge of technical service and support for HDK® fumed silica for Asia Pacific. She has been involved in sealants and adhesives, as well as in coatings research and development activities and product applications. Cheryl Fan joined the Shanghai center in July 2013.
Josef Gong
Josef Gong is a China technical manager at WACKER Shanghai technical center. He is mainly responsible for promotion and technical support of VAE dispersions for industrial and chemical consumer goods in China.
Ricardo Gouvea
Dr. Hardy Herold
Dr. Hardy Herold studied Chemistry at the Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen (Germany), and obtained a doctorate in the field of geophysics. After spending two years at KWU (Siemens subsidiary), he started at WACKER POLYMERS in October 1989, working in Technical Marketing, where he supported customers around the world. During this period, he spent substantial periods abroad, including as technical center head in both Moscow (Russia) and Allentown (USA). Since November 2021, Dr. Herold has been a trainer at WACKER ACADEMY Europe.
Surabhi Jain
Surabhi Jain joined WACKER in 2020 as Manager Technical Services for Mumbai Technical Center. She holds a M.Tech. degree in Polymer Science & Technology from Indian Institute of Technology- IIT Delhi. She has about 12 years of experience in construction chemicals and applications. She supports for training customers in applications for Plaster, Skimcoat and Waterproofing membrane.
Malik Jamal Jaffar Ali
Malik holds a Master of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from National University of Singapore and had co-authored several patents. He joined WACKER in 2011 and is currently heading its Technical Centers in Southeast Asia. He is a frequent speaker at symposiums and seminars related to his area of expertise on the advantages of polymer modified drymix mortar applications.
Dr. Marion Killat
Dr. Marion Killat studied and received her doctorate in chemistry at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern. Following a post-doctoral stay in the USA, she started her career at WACKER in research and development at WACKER POLYMERS. Shortly after the founding of WACKER ACADEMY, she became a member of the trainer team with a focus on various products and applications of the POLYMERS division. In 2020, she took over the management of WACKER ACADEMY Europe.
Michael Killermann
Michael Killermann joined WACKER in 1992 in the analytical department. From 1996 to 2008, he worked as a lab technician in the Building & Coatings business team, where he was in charge of technical distributor support for industrial coatings. He was recruited to the WACKER ACADEMY training team as a practical instructor in May 2008.
Woo-Jae Lee
Woo-Jae Lee joined AD/TS team of industrial coating polymers team of Wacker Chemicals Korea of 2012. He had a master degree of organic systhesis and experenced various waterbone dispersion on his 15 years. Currently he taking care of NEA/SEA/ANZ technical manager for adhesive / Carpet & Paper.
Danis Liu
Danis Liu joined WACKER in 2014 as a technical manager at WACKER Shanghai technical center. He is in charge of technical service and support for Industrial coating, Plastic, Pulp and Industry Defoaming and Chemical Industrial products in China, as well as developing new silicone applications in these fields.
Jayne Ramos
Jayne holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from Mapua Insitute of Technology in Philippines. With years of experience in architectural and industrial coating in Philippines and Singapore, she joined WACKER in 2016 and is responsible for the technical service support in Singapore, Philippines and Myanmar.
Angelita Saul
Angelita has over 17 years’ experience in coatings and adhesives technologies, working as analytical and R&D chemist. She started working for WACKER in 2014, as a Technical Manager for dispersion polymers and special resins in Latin America region. Angelita has bachelor’s degree in Industrial Chemistry by Universidade Luterana do Brasil (ULBRA) and master’s degree in Chemistry at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in which she has studied smart coatings and advanced techniques in anticorrosion coatings. She is currently taking her MBA in Business Administration at Fundação Getúlio Vargas.
George Tessier
George is the Technical Service Manager for Wacker Chemical Corporation’s Construction Polymers Business Unit – Americas. George has been with WACKER since September 2009 and has more than 38 years of experience in the construction chemicals industry. George manages a Team of Chemists and Technicians in the Allentown facility responsible for the technical support of WACKER POLYMERS customers throughout North America. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Chemistry from the University of Vermont. He came to WACKER from BASF where he was the Group Leader for Cementitious Products & EIFS. Previously, he was the R&D Manager for Harris Specialty Chemicals/Thoro Systems.
Juan Wang
Juan Wang is the product supervisor for Construction Polymers at WACKER’s Nanjing factory, where she is in charge of quality supervision of polymer powders. She is also the laboratory supervisor for Construction Polymers at WACKER’s Shanghai technical center, where she is in charge of lab management. She obtained a master’s degree in Material Science from Tongji University in 2006, her main field is high-performance cement-based materials. She has held her position at WACKER Construction Polymers in Shanghai since 2016.