Soft Matter Blog

The International Liquid Crystal Elastomers Conference (ILCEC) will be held from 16-18 October, at Rice University in Houston, Texas. ILCEC 2017 will bring together chemists, physicists, and engineers to share both fundamental advances and discuss application opportunities for this exciting class of materials. The conference will focus on recent advances including reconfigurable network chemistries, localization of mechanical properties, advances in theory and simulation, and material physics.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Mark Warner (University of Cambridge, UK)
• Antonio De Simone (SISSA, Italy)
• Dick Broer (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Germany)
• Christopher Bowman (University of Colorado, USA)
• Yanlei Yu (Fudan University, China)
• Peter Palffy-Muhoray (Kent State University, USA)
• Michael Dickey (North Carolina State University, USA)

Registration is now open – click here to sign up today and visit the ILCEC website for more information.

We are pleased to announce the Soft and Biological Matter symposium which will take place at the 25th International Materials Research Congress, from 20-25 August in Cancun, Mexico.

The symposium, supported by Soft Matter, will explore the fundamentals (structure, mechanics, rheology, dynamics) and applications of such systems. The symposium will cover both experimental and modelling studies, and will encourage discussions and cross-fertilization of ideas.

Topics to be covered include:

• Colloids
• (Self-)propelled particles & Collective motion
• Granular materials, complex fluids and rheology
• Micro and Nanofluidics
• Soft matter aspects of biological tissues and tissue engineering
• Soft and hard interfaces

Confirmed invited speakers:

• Mark Geoghegan (University of Sheffield, UK)
• Glen McHale (Northumbria University, UK)

Early bird registration ends on 30 June – click here to register now or visit the IMRC website for more information.

The 4th ECI Association in Solution Conference, which will take place between 31 July – 4 August at Memorial University, Canada, will aim to bring together scientists from physics, chemistry, biology and engineering to discuss recent advances in the area of self-assembled and related systems.

The conference cuts across key, emerging areas in the biological, chemical, physical sciences along with nano- and micro-scale engineering. The topic is central to many major industries including food, cosmetics and consumer products, pharmaceuticals and energy.

The Scientific Committee for the conference includes:

• Jure Dobnikar (Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
• John Dutcher (University of Guelph, Canada)
• Cecile Fradin (McMaster University, Canada)
• Steve Granick (Center for Soft and Living Matter, Korea)
• Tadashi Kato (Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan)
• Walter Richtering (University of Aachen, Germany)
• Maria Santore (University of Massachusetts, USA)
• Veronique Schmitt (Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, Pessac, France)
• Beth Schubert (Procter & Gamble, USA)
• Ilja Voets (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands)
• Emanuela Zaccarelli (University of Rome, “la Sapienza”, Italy)

The conference will also include awards for the best oral and poster presentations, supported by Soft Matter.

Abstract deadline for poster presentations is 31 May – click here to submit now and or visit the conference website for more details.

The 31st conference of The European Colloid and Interface Society will be held from 3-8 September 2017 at the Complutense University of Madrid. The annual ECIS conference is a major event for the colloid science community, whose primary goal is to bring together all major disciplines of colloids and interfaces, enabling participants to exchange knowledge, communicate with each other the results of their recent research, and to network with colleagues for new collaborations.

The ECIS 2017 will cover fundamental and applied advances in the fields of interfaces, dispersed systems, wetting, complex fluids, micro-and nano-engineered materials, upconversion nanoparticles, ion specific effects, self-assembly of surfactants, polymers and proteins, and advances in theory and instrumentation.

Plenary lectures will be given by the laureates of the Overbeek 2017 and Solvay 2017 prizes and awards will be given for the best oral presentations and poster presentations, some of which will be supported by Soft Matter.

Plenary speakers confirmed:

• Katharina Landfester (Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany)
• Jacob Klein (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)
• Luis Liz Marzan (CIC BioMagune, San Sebastian, Spain)
• Maria Jose Alonso (University of Santiago of Compostela, Spain)
• Michael Cates (University of Cambridge, UK)
• Gareth McKinley (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, USA)
• Thomas Zemb (Institut de Chimie Séparative de Marcoule, France)

Abstract submission deadline for poster presentations is 30 May – click here to enter now and find out further information on the ECIS website.

The Ring Polymers Workshop, which takes place from 25-27 September in Hersonissos, Crete, will discuss recent advances and applications in the field of ring polymers. The format of the workshop will include invited and contributed (oral and poster) presentations, as well as ample time for both formal and informal discussions.

Invited speakers include:

• Rae Anderson (San Diego)
• Ralf Everaers (Lyon)
• George Floudas (Ioannina)
• Scott Grayson (Tulane)
• Margarita Krutyeva (Jülich)
• Alexander Grosberg (NYU)
• Yasuyuki Tezuka (Tokyo)
• Christos Likos (Vienna)
• Davide Michieletto (Edinburgh)

For a full list of invited speakers please click here.

Early bird registration ends 10 May – to register now or book accommodation, visit the ring polymers website.

The 13th International Conference on Materials Chemistry (MC13), which is the flagship event of the RSC’s Materials Chemistry Division, will take place from 10-13 July at the ACC Liverpool, UK.

Themes to be covered include:

• Energy and environment
• Magnetic, electronic and optical materials
• Materials design
• Nanomaterials
• Soft matter and biomaterials

Plenary speakers confirmed:

• Paul Attfield (University of Edinburgh, UK)
• Claudia Felser (Max Planck Institute, Germany)
• Mercouri G Kanatzidis (Northwestern University, USA)
• Takuzo Aida (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
• Katharina Landfester (Max Planck Institue, Germany)
• Avelino Corma (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)
• Jenny Nelson (Imperial College London, UK)

Poster submission deadline is 1st May – click here to submit now or visit the MC13 website for more information.

The Mechanical Forces in Biology symposium, which takes place at EMBL Heidelberg from 12-15 July, aims to unite the field of mechanobiology, by bringing together world-leading experts in the generation and sensing of forces from the molecular scale to the organismal scale, with an important emphasis on the combination of physics and computer modelling with molecular genetics and live-imaging in vitro or in vivo.

The field is currently expanding rapidly and the event aims to provide a comprehensive overview of this progress as well as aiming to capitalise on the opportunities for new collaborations. Topics covered in the symposium include: force generation; mechanosensing; mechanotransduction; cellular morphogenesis and tissue morphogenesis.

Keynote speakers confirmed:

This is the third colloid science conference in this series and will be held at Manchester Central from 10-12 July 2017. It is being jointly organised by the RSC Colloid and Interface Science Group and the SCI Colloid and Surface Science Group and will provide a perfect opportunity for UK and international researchers interested in colloid and interface science to meet, present and discuss issues related to current developments in this field.

Confirmed plenary speakers include:

• Prof Debora Berti (University of Florence and Centre for Colloid and Surface Science, Italy)
• Prof Vinny N Manoharan (Harvard University, USA)
• Prof Paul Mulvaney (University of Melbourne, Australia)

The deadline for abstract submission is 18 April – click here to submit now and visit the website for full programme updates, list of speakers and further information.

The Thermodynamics 2017 conference, held at the John McIntyre Conference Centre,  will be the 25th meeting in a series of biennial thermodynamics conferences initiated in 1964 by Harold Springall, championed throughout the 1960s and 1970s by Max McGlashan and Sir John Rowlinson.

The format of the conference is based on invited lectures, oral presentations, short presentations and poster prizes, supported by Soft Matter. A number of awards will be given to recognised researchers and young scientists. The conference aims to attract about 200 researchers and presenters from academia and industry from around the world. In 2017, the main themes of the conference will include Advances in molecular simulation; Interfacial and confined phenomena; Engineered self-assembly; Carbon capture and other industrial applications; Non-equilibrium thermodynamics; Challenges and advances in fluid phase equilibria.

Plenary speakers confirmed:

Prof. Debra Bernhardt (University of Queensland, Australia)

Prof. Pablo Debenedetti (Princeton University, USA)

Prof. Ruth Lynden-Bell (University of Cambridge, UK)

Dr Francois-Xavier Coudert (Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris, France)

Prof. Martin Trusler (Imperial College London, UK)

Prof. Carlos Vega (University Complutense of Madrid, Spain)

Prof. Nigel Wilding (University of Bath, UK)

Registration and abstract submission is now open – click here to register, or find out more on the Thermodynamics website.

10-12 May, 2017, University of Luxembourg

Soft Matter is pleased to support Twisted, a two-day conference on the physics, chemistry and applications of cholesteric lyotropic liquid crystals developing in colloidal suspensions of chiral nanorods.

The motivation for the conference is the rapidly growing interest in liquid crystals formed by nanocrystals of cellulose or chitin, filamentous viruses, carbon nanotubes and similar rod-like nanoparticles in suspensions in water or other isotropic solvents, and topics will be covered in four sessions: