Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 2017
  • B.S., Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2011
Licenses & Certifications
  • Professional Engineer Chemical, California, #7075
Professional Honors
  • National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, 2012-2015
Professional Affiliations
  • Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) member (2020-present)
  • Participating Member of ASTM International (2022-present)
Languages
  • Czech

With over a decade of experience in the polymer science field, Dr. Buss' interests include using material structure-property relationships to address real-world problems. As a Managing Engineer at Exponent, Dr. Buss works in product development, scale up, and failure analysis of polymer systems with a specialization in performance and sustainability. Dr. Buss has assisted clients in all stages of the product life cycle from product design to in-field performance and failure analysis, including litigation support.  She has applied this expertise to a variety of applications including coatings, piping, consumer devices, food packaging, and personal care products, among others. Dr. Buss is well versed in numerous polymerization methods (including free radical, controlled free radical, emulsion, anionic, and solid phase synthesis) and characterization techniques (including DSC, GPC, NMR, FTIR LC-MS, and TGA).  She routinely utilizes these methods and techniques to assist in the formulation of novel materials for commercial products such as paints, creams, artificial stucco, and detergents.

With an interest in designing for sustainability, including the recycling of plastic materials, as well as evaluating the release of microplastics from products, Dr. Buss is serving on the National Academy of Sciences (NASEM) Roundtable on Plastics and is a member of the Society for Plastics Engineers (SPE), where she has presented on designing for recyclability. She is a voting member of the ASTM Committee on Plastics (D20), a member of the subcommittee on Recycled Plastics (D20.95). Dr. Buss is formally trained as a chemical engineer and is a licensed engineer in the state of California. Dr. Buss' doctoral research at UC Berkeley was focused on marine antifouling coatings and high transference number electrolytes for batteries, while her undergraduate research work involved designing polymer systems for drug delivery. Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Buss worked at Dow Chemical, developing new monomers for use in acrylic emulsion polymerization and developing methods for evaluating primary cleaning in the auto-dishwashing market.