Erin Askounis

Dr. Askounis leverages her background in materials science to assist clients with assessing the specification, manufacturing, and end-use performance of polymeric materials used in finished goods. She routinely consults on the durability and potential failure modes of components in the building and construction, plumbing, automotive, oil and gas, consumer products, and consumer electronics industries. She has assisted clients with material compatibility assessments, failure analysis, product development, polymer processing, polymer fracture, material selection, and reliability testing. Her prior project work includes a wide array of synthetic materials such as rubbers, elastomers, plastics, thermosets, greases and lubricants, sealants, and fiber-reinforced composites. This includes specific commercial materials such as EPDM and EPM, nitrile rubbers (NBR, HNBR), thermoplastic elastomers (TPE, TPU, SEBS, SEPS), styrene butadiene rubber (SBR), natural rubber (NR), butyl rubber (IIR), chloroprene rubber (CPR), fluoroelastomers (FKM), silicones (RTV), polyurethanes (PU), nylon, crosslinked polyethylene (PEX), and polypropylene.

Dr. Askounis has extensive experience in several techniques to characterize materials, including spectroscopy (FTIR, UV-Vis, NMR), chromatography (GPC), thermal (TGA, DSC), thermomechanical (DMA, TMA), microscopy (optical, SEM), and crystallography (XRD). She has utilized her characterization experience to solve problems related to environmental stress cracking, creep, fatigue, mechanical overload, material weathering, wear, polymer aging, chemical contamination, polymer fractography, and polymer degradation.  

Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Askounis obtained her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles where she led the development, synthesis, and fabrication of new high-performance stimuli-responsive polymer and composite materials. As part of her work, she developed variable stiffness materials stimulated by light, temperature, and solvent, capable of ultra-wide tunable stiffness ranges for use in biomedical applications. She also developed, synthesized, and fabricated new dielectric elastomeric materials and actuators exhibiting both high strain and rapid frequency response for use in robotics applications.