Congratulations to Professor Gregory McKenna on being named the 2026 Charles Goodyear Medalist! The Charles Goodyear Medal is the most prestigious award presented by the Rubber Division of the American Chemical Society to honor scientists and engineers who have made an outstanding invention, innovation or development which resulted in significant change or contribution to the nature of the rubber industry. The award pays tribute to Charles Goodyear, the discoverer of the vulcanization of rubber.

Prof. McKenna’s work in rubber began nearly 50 years ago when he was given charge in 1977 to lead the “Rubber Program” at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST). His early work at NBS on the swelling of rubber settled a long-standing controversy and demonstrated the correctness of the Flory-Rehner hypothesis that the mixing and elastic free energies balance at equilibrium swelling. He has also made a number of important contributions in the area of nanoconfined polymers. For example, Prof. McKenna miniaturized the classic membrane inflation method used to characterize rubber. The resulting “nano-bubble inflation” method was used to measure the viscoelastic response of ultrathin polymer films, verifying that the glass transition of 4 nm-thick polycarbonate was reduced by as much as 122 °C.  In addition, Prof. McKenna made the discovery that the rubbery plateau stiffened strongly with reduced film thickness.  Prof. McKenna has been a major contributor to the evaluation of the time-temperature or frequency-temperature superposition behavior of rubbery materials, which is a key ingredient, especially for predicting material behavior at high frequencies  or long times that are outside of normal testing time frames.  Prof. McKenna has also pioneered the use of “ultrastable glasses”, either lab-made or as ancient ambers, to challenge paradigms related to the dramatic change in the dynamics of polymers as the glass transition temperature is approached from above, i.e., from the rubbery state.

At NC State, Prof. McKenna is the principal investigator for the project, Transformation of American Rubber through Domestic Innovation for Supply Security (TARDISS), a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center dedicated to establishing a domestic, alternative source of natural rubber that is led by Ohio State University. McKenna’s work for TARDISS focuses on full characterization of the rubber from the tropical rubber tree and from alternative sources, such as guayule and dandelion rubber that can be grown in the United States. The TARDISS project is designed to integrate biology, materials-informed genetic modifications, and engineering to develop natural rubbers that outperform the traditional  materials.  In addition to this rubber project, Prof. McKenna’s research at State also includes studies of behavior at the nanoscale, ultra-stable glasses, molecular rheology, colloid rheology and dynamics, dynamic and spatial heterogeneity in glassy polymers, and kinetics of crystallization in pharmaceuticals and energetic materials. 

McKenna has won a number of previous awards, including the highest honors from the Society of Rheology (Bingham Medal,2009), the Society of Plastics Engineers (International Award, 2004), and the North American Thermal Analysis Society (Outstanding Achievement Award in Thermal Analysis,2001).  He has also been named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society of Rheology, the Society of Engineering Science, the North American Thermal Analysis Society, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. McKenna received his B.S. in engineering mechanics from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970, his M.S. in composite materials from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971, and his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Utah in 1976. He served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force for five years and was honorably discharged at the rank of captain. He is a research professor at NC State and is a Horn Distinguished Professor Emeritus and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech University.