Live Webinar: Building Resilience with AI-Enabled R&D
Supply disruptions, raw material price volatility and regional differences in material availability are placing increasing pressure on chemical companies to reformulate products quickly without compromising performance, quality or customer commitments. Join us for our "Building Resilience with AI-Enabled R&D: How Stepan Responds Faster to Supply and Market Disruption" webinar on August 27 at 10 a.m. ET as we explore this industry shift more in-depth.
In this webinar, Stepan's Emily Zarefsky, Sustainability and Innovation Lead, and Jeremy Weitgenant, Research Associate Lead - Construction and Industrial Solutions, will share how we is using the Citrine AI Platform and materials informatics to strengthen R&D resilience and accelerate its response to changing market conditions. The discussion will explore how digital tools can help product experts navigate complex formulation trade-offs, shorten development cycles and adapt products to customer-specific requirements across different geographies.
The session will connect Stepan’s broader enterprise innovation strategy with practical examples from its Construction and Industrial Solutions business. Attendees will learn how AI-enabled R&D can support faster reformulation, improve continuity when raw materials change and help technical teams respond more effectively to evolving customer and regional needs.
Register to hear how Stepan is moving from AI strategy to practical application and building a more responsive, resilient approach to product development.
About Our Speakers
Emily Zarefsky: Emily Zarefsky serves as the Sustainability & Innovation Lead at Stepan Company, where she oversees the company’s innovation processes and governance, as well as global sustainability strategy. In this role, she drives structured, cross-functional approaches to portfolio management and initiative prioritization. As part of the sustainability strategy, Emily oversees product impact assessments and process management, ensuring sustainability is integrated throughout the company’s innovation efforts. Within the Citrine partnership, Emily played a pivotal role in shaping the program’s structure, coordinating stakeholder engagement, and driving the organizational change needed to build readiness, adoption, and confidence across R&D teams.
Jeremy Weitgenant: Jeremy Weitgenant is a Lead Research Associate for the Construction and Industrial Solutions business at Stepan Company, where he leads the development of innovative surfactants and specialty ingredients for industrial applications. With more than two decades of experience in research and product development, he has played a key role in bringing new technologies from concept to commercialization while helping customers solve complex formulation challenges. Jeremy holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Colorado State University, did a Post Doc at the University of Notre Dame and is the inventor or co-inventor on numerous patents spanning surfactants, oleochemicals, and specialty chemical technologies.