In memoriam of Liliana Chamudis, deputy director of AIMPLAS for more than 20 years

This first fortnight of May has gone with terrible news that we could not believe despite repeating it repeatedly in our heads, even though it was being put in writing: Liliana has passed away suddenly.

And we could not believe it because it was unexpected, because even though Liliana had decided to retire, she was in our daily lives: “ask Liliana”, “Liliana surely has some contact there”, “it seems to me that Liliana visited them?”.

But yes, our dear colleague and friend passed away suddenly on 14 May.

Liliana Chamudis started her career at AIMPLAS in 1992. As a graduate in Chemistry, she brought with her a previous background developed in Argentina in the thermoset materials industry, which she took advantage of to join our Chemical Laboratory and, in a very short time, she began her extensive professional career that culminated as deputy director of AIMPLAS, in charge of the Projects Area, a position she held for more than 20 years.

Her professional value, her special dedication and her personal determination to open AIMPLAS to the international level were the keys to where we are today. Liliana’s work during the different framework programmes, from our first European project when we were barely 50 people working at AIMPLAS, allowed us to extend our influence as a technology centre throughout Europe, while at the same time strengthening our role on a national and regional level.

A tireless traveller, Liliana stood out as a representative of AIMPLAS in national and international forums, always promoting collaborations and partnerships between different research organisations and associations, in the conviction that positive synergies are the most direct way to achieve valuable results in the field of R&D&I.

Nanofuture, Materplat (Spanish Technological Platform for Advanced Materials), SusChem Europe (European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry), SAMPE Europe (Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering), EuPC (European Plastics Converters), EARTO (European Association of Research & Technology Organizations), CPA (Circular Plastic Alliance) or EFE (Flexible Packaging Spain) are some of the forums where it has actively participated. And with the conviction of the usefulness of stable collaboration networks, she played a leading role in the creation of the ECP4 platform (European Composites, Plastics and Polymer Processing Platform) of which AIMPLAS was a founder and Liliana vice-president until 2020.

We would like to thank all the expressions of affection that we have received since Liliana’s loss and we would like to pass them on to her family and friends, together with the heartfelt condolences of the entire AIMPLAS team.

We say goodbye to Liliana, but not completely because we have her legacy and her memory.