Stephan Kirchmeyer

Stephan Kirchmeyer was born in 1957 in Empelde near Hannover, Germany. From 1978 to 1984 he studied chemistry at the University of Hamburg and at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he joined the group of George Olah for one year. He finished his Ph.D. thesis in 1987 in Hamburg in the group of Armin deMeijere with a study on strained multicyclic hydrocarbons. After his thesis he went to San Jose/USA for a postdoctoral fellowship and worked with IBM on photoinitiated rearrangements.

He joined Bayer AG in 1988. From 1988 to 1996 he headed a laboratory in Bayer’s Central R&D division with projects related to polymer and materials science. After spending one year in Bayer’s silicone department he switched to the electronic chemicals group in 1997. In 2002 he joined H.C. Starck GmbH in Germany, an affiliated company, which took over the business of conducting polymers from Bayer. At H.C. Starck he held positions as an R+D manager (2002 – 2008), plant site manager (2004-2008, in addition to the R+D management) and as global business line manager (2008-2009) for H.C. Starck’s conductive polymer division. During this time H.C. Starck’s conductive polymer products grew from the laboratory to a world leading level.

During his career he published app. 100 papers and patents, the majority related to organic and polymeric functional materials for electronics, conducting polymers and organic semiconductors.

He presently holds the position of the head of operations and technology at the H.C. Starck Clevios GmbH, an affiliate company of H.C. Starck GmbH, a company with focus on conductive polymers.