If you were a middle-school teacher asking a classroom of seventh graders about their future careers, what do you think you might hear? Doctor? Lawyer? Computer game developer? These days, you might even hear something like “TikTok influencer?”
How about “Plastics engineer?”
Had you been Katherine Hofmann’s seventh-grade teacher, you would have found yourself at the beginning of a fascinating journey. Today, Katherine is Sustainability Initiatives Manager at Eastman, where she partners with Eastman’s plastics, circular, and coatings and inks businesses, helping to embed sustainable thinking and strategy into those businesses.
You don’t hear too much about people who say they want to work with polymers when they grow up.
This is very true! Young people don’t usually know a whole lot about polymers. In 7th Grade I participated in the Science Olympiad, and they were trying out a test event on polymer identification. It was the first time that I had really looked closely at plastics. I actually didn’t even know the word “polymer” before that. In the event, they gave us a few different pieces of material and you had to run some really simple tests. They had some different liquids that you could expose them to, for instance. They were basic tests you could do as a middle schooler. I learned so much and I was so excited about it that I loved telling everybody about it. It was fascinating to me. There’s this material, we call it “plastic,” but there’s all these different types. I just had fun with it. Oh, and to be fully honest, I had never placed well in Science Olympiad in other events!
Everyone has to start somewhere!
Absolutely! I did end up getting a medal at States later on in this event and thinking, “Maybe I’m kind of good at this. Maybe this is more interesting than I even knew.” After that, when we had a school project where you could pick a topic, research it, and then share information with the class, I always chose polymers. In eighth grade, I made homemade Silly Putty for everybody – long before the current slime craze. I brought it to school in individual baggies and talked about polymers and how there’s this cool one you can play with.
Any other fun projects?
In our Social Studies class, we watched a video and had to write down interesting words as we heard them and do a presentation on what we heard with a partner. I had pulled out the word “alloy.” Since I was in Band, I looked at brass as a great example of an alloy that related to my everyday life. The partner I worked with, her mom worked for Battelle, a nonprofit science and technology organization that works very closely with NASA in Cleveland, where we lived. My partner’s mom set us up with one of the engineers at Battelle to help us understand more about alloys.
So, it wasn’t polymers at first sight, then?
No, not entirely! Going into high school, I said I was going to be an architect. My mom asked me if I was sure, and when I said yes, she had my brother’s friend who was an architect come over to talk with me about it. He said that if I really wanted to do architecture, I shouldn’t focus on buildings but on something like product design. Keeping that in mind, I found myself asking questions like, “What is that made out of? What is this made out of?” I was constantly looking at all the things around me. Is this metal? Is this plastic? Is it ceramic? An interest in materials sciences just developed, and I eventually found plastic more fascinating. Maybe because there’s so much chemistry involved. Then I learned about materials science engineering and that became my focus for college!
What did that part of your journey look like?
I went to Case Western Reserve University, after trying hard NOT to go there. That’s where both my brothers went and I wanted to do my own thing. But I wanted to study polymers, and Case Western was one of only two schools that offered an undergraduate polymers program. Finding out I could get a free ride at Case Western, the decision got easier.
You got over the fact that your brothers went there?
For sure, it was a great choice. And I don’t regret it at all, even though going to orientation I may have still been a little grumpy about wanting to be my own person. Despite the fact that I had been on campus multiple times, we still did the tour when I was visiting schools and my mother flagged down one of the professors who taught my brothers, telling him about my interest in materials. He actually took me to visit the head of the Materials Science department, Dr. Gary Michal at the time, who sat and talked with me for an hour as a random potential student that showed up in his office. That resulted in a decision to major in polymers and fill out my studies with Materials Science electives. I was able to do undergraduate research for all four years in the polymers department too including synthetic chemistry for a semester, which helped me understand that wasn’t my area of expertise.
It’s nice to meet people who help you.
Definitely! Speaking of that, I interned at NASA for two summers—right out of high school and after freshman year of college—and had a really great mentor there. Kim de Groh—a materials scientist. She was really intrigued that I had specifically called out polymers in my application, so she went ahead and brought me in. I worked on degradation analysis of insulation returned from the Hubble Space Telescope solar array panel.
Pretty cool for someone so young.
Yes, it was very cool, and I even got a publication out of it. I mean, I’m at the very end of the list of authors, which is completely fair, but having a publication out of an internship is a really amazing opportunity.
Anything else to share about working at NASA?
Kim did a really great job of exposing me to the different instrumentation. We used scanning electron and optical microscopy, , and we did infrared measurements. She showed me how to conduct various experiments including things like exposure to atomic oxygen. She liked teaching me the science behind what we were doing and how it could be applied in the future. I learned how NASA is using polymer science to improve what we can do out in space to help us understand the broader universe.
Back to your college career. After undergrad at Case Western Reserve, you skipped the Master’s degree step and went straight into studying for your Ph.D. at Virginia Tech.
I learned, in looking at graduate schools, that if you know you’re going to get a Ph.D. you can just go straight to it in many programs. The polymers program at Virginia Tech was actually something pretty unique since I could build my own coursework and choose my own advisor. I was fortunate there was funding for a project that allowed me to choose to be co-advised by a science and mechanics engineer and a physical chemist. I worked with brilliant researchers and developed valued relationships with both chemists and engineers, observing the way their minds worked, the way they approached problem-solving, and the communication techniques involved in each approach. It helped shape me to be somewhere in the middle, able to communicate from both perspectives.
Neither the chemistry nor engineering label really fit you, exactly?
After years of engineers saying I was a chemist and chemists saying I was an engineer, I finally just started calling myself a scientist. My degree says “Science and Engineering,” so let’s just say I’m a scientist and we’ll stop this debate.
Tell us how you arrived at Eastman after grad school.
I was debating. Academia has a lot of politics, so I didn’t think I wanted to go that route because it sounded excessively stressful to me. I was looking at the national labs and industry primarily. My professor kind of steered me away from the national labs. I think he just wanted me to be careful about the fact that anything government-funded would have some push and pull and potential for non-funding, depending on who’s in office.
If you wanted to avoid politics, that wouldn’t necessarily be the way to do it.
Exactly. Eastman had what they called a “focus” school event. They brought in polymers students from several schools and took us on a tour. We got to see the research buildings and an offsite building, where they had the processing equipment that they were using from a research perspective. And then we had a Q&A panel and a session highlighting some of the work that was going on. That opened my eyes to what industry could be and I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. [1]
Is Ph.D. work uniquely stressful?
I’ll say that it’s not to be taken lightly. I tell everyone [2] who is considering going to grad school that you need to have a reason that you are getting that degree. If you are going just to get your Ph.D., you are highly unlikely to finish because it is a grueling process. To do what I really wanted to do, I really had to have a Ph.D. so I could control my own work. I wanted to be able to set up my own experiments versus what I was seeing you did with a bachelor’s degree during my undergraduate internships in this space; you were working for a scientist, executing the things they were asking you to do. I wanted to be more on the side of determining the experiments that needed to be done.
So, what was next?
I was finishing up in 2012 when Eastman and a couple of other companies came onsite to recruit. I ended up with offers for essentially the same job at two different companies. For a few reasons, the Eastman offer was more attractive to me. As time progressed, I got involved with a lot of extremely interesting projects, solving a customer issue, fundamental work to launch a new material, leading product development for new copolyesters, and different formulations work . Eventually, I was moved to the Application Development Group, taking the lead on exploring practical ways of using the materials we were working with in the durables market space.
And when did the move to sustainability happen?
In 2017 or 2018 I realized I really wanted my morals aligned with my work. I love plastics, but I also care for the environment and keeping the world as safe as possible. But here I was in this industry that everybody seems to attack. Then, we had a speaker in for International Women’s Day and something she said sparked my mind, telling me I can do both. Plastics and a healthy environment aren’t mutually exclusive. I lobbied for a lot of different sustainability roles, but the company really needed me in applications development, so I stayed with that while getting involved as a liaison to the sustainability group and focusing on sustainability-related projects whenever I could in my day-to-day work. This included leading ISCC+ certification for the Americas or bringing in new application opportunities based on sustainability drivers, but one of my favorite things that I still work on is our molecular recycling technology. I helped launch Tritan Renew and I continue to work on educating and advocating for both mechanical and molecular recycling. Helping combat the message that recycling is a lie and will never be successful and instead build understanding that recycling is real and is a solution for plastic waste is really rewarding. After all, its only waste if we waste it, and its only trash if we trash it. Last year, a spot opened up on the corporate sustainability team, and they were able to bring me over full-time.
Are you a sustainability ambassador outside of work, too?
I love having conversations with people who tell me plastics are bad. I ask them to think more broadly. If we replace all plastic with metal, glass, paper, that’s actually a higher environmental impact than plastics including, but not limited to, carbon footprint, water usage, and material extraction. There was a young man on an airplane—about 18. He saw me working on a set of slides and, at the very end of the flight, he asked me some questions. One of them was along the lines of, “So, your company could make an alternative to plastic, so that we don’t use plastic anymore?” I told him, “No. We don’t want to do that.” He was studying to be a pilot, so I told him how great plastic is for planes and how planes are moving to composites.
And did he get it?
Yes! He understood that getting rid of plastics isn’t the answer but that using them responsibly is. Plastics have completely altered society. We could not exist in the way we do today without plastics. It’s just not possible.
Why should a young person consider working in plastics?
A lot of the world is made of plastic. I think there’s a myriad of opportunities to have not only a world made out of plastics, but a responsible world made out of plastics. They’re a necessary part of our lives. Let’s figure out how we use them responsibly and safely to help make sure people are fed, that they have access to healthcare, that we continue to reduce greenhouse gases through lightweighting. We need people who know about these materials to help educate government and companies about their benefits.
Do you ever speak with young people who are thinking about their future careers?
Absolutely. I actually use my own experience as a way to try to help drive engagement in middle school. Knowing what it did for me, I want to do that for other kids, even if it’s just a spark. Through Eastman, I participate in National Chemistry Week for 4th graders and then I’ve been on the Engineers Week committee for Eastman for the past 10 years. The whole time I’ve been here, we’ve gone out to middle schools and high schools to introduce engineering and do activities. I use both opportunities to talk about plastics and polymer science, giving a little intro to material science. Middle school age is so ripe for just getting those little sparks of exposure.
If somebody hadn’t mentioned polymers to you—right?
Exactly. I may have gone into alloys or metals. Or I’d still be trying to be an architect!