Soft Matter Blog

Do you know an early-career researcher who deserves recognition for their contribution to the soft matter field?

Now is your chance to put them forward for the accolade they deserve.

Soft Matter is pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for its 2018 Lectureship award. This annual award was established in 2009 to honour an early-stage career scientist who has made a significant contribution to the soft matter field.

2017 winner Daeyeon Lee gives his talk at the Colloid and Interface Symposium

Previous winners

2017 – Daeyeon Lee, University of Pennsylvania, USA

2016 – Damien Baigl, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

2015 – Lucio Isa, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

2014 – Eric Dufresne, Yale Univeristy, USA

2013 – Eric Furst, University of Delaware, USA

2012 – Patrick Doyle, MIT, USA

2011 – Michael J. Solomon, University of Michigan, USA

2010 – Bartosz Grzybowski, UNIST, Republic of Korea

2009 – Emanuela Zaccarelli, University of Rome, Italy

Qualification

To be eligible for the Soft Matter Lectureship, the candidate should be in the earlier stages of their scientific career, typically within 12 years of attaining their doctorate or equivalent degree, and will have made a significant contribution to the field.

Description

The recipient of the award will be asked to present a lecture at a meeting in 2018, where they will also be presented with the award. The Soft Matter Editorial Office will provide financial support to the recipient for travel and accommodation costs.

The recipient will also be asked to contribute a lead article to the journal and will have their work showcased free of charge on the front cover of the issue in which their article is published.

Selection

The recipient of the award will be selected and endorsed by the Soft Matter Editorial Board.

Nominations

Those wishing to make a nomination should send details of the nominee, including a brief C.V. and a letter supporting the nomination, to the Soft Matter Editorial Office by 28^th February 2018. Self-nomination is not permitted.

It is with great pleasure that we announce Prof. Daeyeon Lee (University of Pennsylvania, USA) as the recipient of the 2017 Soft Matter Lectureship.

The Soft Matter Lectureship is an annual award that honours an early-career researcher for their significant contribution to the soft matter field. The recipient is selected by the Soft Matter Editorial Board from a list of candidates nominated by the community.

Read on to find out more about Daeyeon…

Professor Daeyeon Lee

Daeyeon Lee obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2007 after completing a Bachelor’s Degree at Seoul National University in 2001. He then moved to Harvard University for a postdoctoral fellowship, before becoming a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009.

His current research interests focus on developing a deep understanding of the interactions between soft materials (e.g., polymers, colloids and biologicals, etc.) near or at interfaces. The major research efforts of his group include understanding the behaviour of Janus particles at fluid interfaces, improving the assembly and mechanical properties of nanoparticle films, generating hierarchical structures using emulsions and bubbles as templates, and developing catalytic systems for biomass conversion.

Since 2005, Prof. Lee has received 14 honours and awards and published 117 peer-reviewed articles. He received the Gold Award in Materials Research Society (MRS) in 2006, the AIChE NSEF Young Investigator Award in 2013, and the S. Reid Warren, Jr. Award in 2017, in recognition of outstanding service in stimulating and guiding the intellectual and professional development of undergraduate students.

To learn more about Daeyeon’s research, have a look at his recent publications in Soft Matter:

Capillarity-induced directed self-assembly of patchy hexagram particles at the air–water interface
Sung-Min Kang, Chang-Hyung Choi, Jongmin Kim, Su-Jin Yeom, Daeyeon Lee, Bum Jun Park and Chang-Soo Lee
Soft Matter, 2016,12, 5847-5853

Nanomechanics of layer-by-layer polyelectrolyte complexes: a manifestation of ionic cross-links and fixed charges
Biao Han, Daphney R. Chery, Jie Yin, X. Lucas Lu, Daeyeon Lee and Lin Han
Soft Matter, 2016,12, 1158-1169

Enzymatically triggered rupture of polymersomes
Woo-Sik Jang, Seung Chul Park, Ellen H. Reed, Kevin P. Dooley, Samuel F. Wheeler, Daeyeon Lee and Daniel A. Hammer
Soft Matter, 2016,12, 1014-1020

We would like to thank everybody who nominated a candidate for the Lectureship; we received many excellent nominations, and the Editorial Board had a difficult task in choosing between some outstanding candidates.

Please join us in congratulating Daeyeon on his award!