ERIE, Pa. — In the plastics industry, Lynzie Nebel is known as the “voice of resin.”
Nebel, a 2008 graduate of Penn State Behrend, co-hosts the "PlastChicks" podcast, which features emerging leaders in plastics manufacturing. She and her recording partner, Mercedes Landazuri, recorded an episode at Behrend during this summer’s Innovation and Emerging Plastics Technologies Conference.
“I don’t know if I will ever be the best at this,” she said, “but I do love it.”
Nebel, an engineer at the biopharma company Cytiva, also serves as president-elect of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), a trade association with more than 22,500 members in 84 countries.
At Behrend, where she studied plastics engineering technology, Nebel met a faculty member who had done design work for the Barbie brand.
“What little girl wouldn’t be excited to be a part of that?” she said.
She joined SPE. She met Landazuri at a convention, and they quickly became friends, she said. The "PlastChicks" podcast grew from that. Nebel views the podcast as a way for them to stay connected and “meet cool people.”
“Our big thing is to tell the human side of plastics,” she said. “People may have a negative perception or maybe don’t know the full breadth of the field.”
The podcast, now in its eighth season, has featured product designers and engineers from the Ford Motor Company, Proctor & Gamble and Lyft.
“It’s a peek behind the curtain,” Nebel said.
The first episode, in 2019, featured David Kusuma, the vice president of research and product innovation at Tupperware. He talked about the plastic food packaging the company developed for NASA’s astronauts.
“They also sent Tupperware to Mars,” Nebel said. “We try to put things like that out there and say, ‘Look at all this stuff.’”
She said she and Landazuri keep the conversations light. They laugh a lot during the recordings.
“It’s a really fun industry,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be boring to learn about it.”
The pair also use the platform to provide scholarships to students who have a passion for plastics.
Nebel often jokes that she is “plastics famous.” In 2026, when she becomes president of SPE, her profile will be even more elevated.
She said she hopes to focus on diversity and gender inclusion, both on the podcast and across SPE.
“By the time I get off the SPE board, I will have served 10 years,” she said. “In many of those years, I have been the only woman. I hope I am bringing a different perspective, but it can’t just be me.”