Dr. George Athens is the R&D Environmental Health & Safety and Learning Director at Dow Chemical. In this role, he is responsible for leading the implementation of the EH&S management system across Global R&D through process improvement, functional collaboration, and culture change programs to drive effective, top-tier safety performance across all of Dow’s R&D labs and pilot plants. 

George has over 17 years of industrial experience, holding numerous technical and leadership roles, including leading R&D teams engaged in high-throughput research, catalyst synthesis, and process development. In his previous role, George led the Reactive Chemicals capability within Core R&D, where he oversaw a global team of engineers and scientists specializing in fundamental thermochemical/flammability expertise and measurement science. The Reactive Chemicals team focuses on technical problem-solving for complex issues at all scales in manufacturing and R&D, driving solutions in support of safe operation, operational reliability, process development, and optimization at Dow. As a researcher, he contributed to a variety of technology areas, including heterogeneous catalyst development, photovoltaics, and electronic materials synthesis.

George earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an inventor on 11 issued patents and co-author of numerous external publications.