![The winner of the 2026 NATAS Outstanding Achievement Award – the Mettler – is Anil Bhowmick, a research professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. [Left to right] Rigoberto Advincula, a professor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee; Bhowmick; Matthias Wagner, a product manager at Mettler Toledo; and Larry Judovits, a member of NATAS and retired principal scientist of more than 35 years at Arkema.](/sites/ccoe.egr.uh.edu/files/images/news/2026/anil-bhowmick-award-01-crop.jpg "The winner of the 2026 NATAS Outstanding Achievement Award – the Mettler – is Anil Bhowmick, a research professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. [Left to right] Rigoberto Advincula, a professor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee; Bhowmick; Matthias Wagner, a product manager at Mettler Toledo; and Larry Judovits, a member of NATAS and retired principal scientist of more than 35 years at Arkema.")
Anil K. Bhowmick, a research professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering, has added another prestigious honor to his already impressive collection.
Bhowmick is the 2026 winner of North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS) Outstanding Achievement Award, more commonly known as the Mettler, thanks to a sponsorship by Mettler Toledo.
This award is the Society’s highest honor and “recognizes distinguished achievement in the field of thermal analysis.” This includes but isn’t limited to differential thermal methods, thermogravimetry, rheology and effluent gas analysis, particularly in the development, refinement and application of thermal techniques with broad scientific and technological impact.
As the award winner, Bhowmick gave a presentation, “Understanding and Innovating Polymers and Composites through Thermal Analysis,” at the North American Thermal Analysis Society’s annual meeting in Atlanta from Aug. 3–6.
Bhowmick said that he would like to express his heartfelt thanks and gratitude to NATAS, especially to the Jury members for recognizing the work; the nominator and supporters for his nomination for the award; his parents, mentors and funding agencies; his colleagues and his family for this success; and he appreciates the support, cooperation and hard work of his students. He is also grateful to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in India and UH for providing the facilities for his work.
Bhowmick joined Cullen in 2019, after more than 35 years at IIT. Bhowmick has made many contributions to the development of polymer science and engineering, with his work covering polymer nanocomposites, thermoplastic elastomers, sustainable materials and technology, failure and degradation, adhesion science and rubber technology.
He has been recognized often for his efforts, both while at Cullen and before joining. In 2025, he received the Adhesion Society Award of Excellence in Adhesion Science from the Adhesion Society, USA and Colwyn Medal from the Institute of Materials, UK for his seminal work on adhesion science and rubber materials respectively. In 2024, he was awarded the International Rubber Conference Organisation’s (IRCO) Gold Medal for his contributions to research, education and industry in the field of rubber science and engineering.
This comes after receiving the ACS’s Melvin Mooney Distinguished Technology Award in 2022, and the 2021 James L. White Innovation Award from the Polymer Processing Society. He holds 21 patents in various fields. Bhowmick has more than 600 publications to his name, as well as 35 book chapters, seven co-edited books and three co-authored books.