Congratulations to John Goldstone (BS Chemistry, Winter 2018) for receiving a $225,000 NSF grant to support his startup company, Boydston Chemical Innovations, Inc. (BCI). BCI uses patent-pending technology discovered in the UW Department of Chemistry Boydston Research Group to utilize a metal-free approach to making high performance resins and polymers. The company hopes they will be able to provide efficient routes to producing lightweight high-toughness production parts that could be used in vehicles to increase fuel efficiency, agricultural equipment, wind energy turbine blades, medical implants, and bullet-proof plastic composites.
John’s educational background (BA in Business Administration, Master of Business Administration, BS Chemistry) and rich experience as the Director of Commercialization and Licensing at Weyerhaeuser have been instrumental to propelling the startup company forward. Barry Johnson, Director of the NSF’s Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships states “The National Science Foundation supports small businesses with the most innovative, cutting-edge ideas that have potential to become great commercial success and make huge societal impacts. We hope that this seed funding will spark solutions to some of the most important challenges of our time across all areas of science and technology.”