Tim Osswald is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Polymer Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Originally from Cúcuta, Colombia, he received his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the field of Polymer Processing. He spent two and a half years at the Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV) in Aachen, Germany, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow. He received the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award, as well as the 2001 VDI-K Dr--Richard-Escales-Preis. In 2006 he was named an Honorary Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. Professor Osswald teaches polymer processing and designing with polymers and researches in the same areas. Professor Osswald has published over 100 papers and many books for Hanser, including Materials Science of Polymers for Engineers 2E (©2003), Polymer Processing Fundamentals (©1998), Injection Molding Handbook 2E (©2007) Compression Molding (©2003), Polymer Processing: Modeling and Simulation (©2006), Plastics Testing and Characterization (©2008), International Plastics Handbook (©2006), and the soon-to-be-released Understanding Polymer Processing (©2010). Professor Osswald is also the series editor of Plastics Pocket Power (©2001), which currently includes six books. Professor Osswald has also been consulted by several industries, is one of the co-founders of The Madison Group, and is the Director of the Technical Advisory Board of SIMTEC Silicone Parts.