Fall 2017 Newsletter

Deadlines

November 3 - March meeting abstracts. Less than 2 weeks more to submit your abstracts.

November 3 - Nomination for Frank J. Padden Jr. Award. Send nominations by email to Jan Genzer using the subject line "Padden_name of student". Students must be APS DPOLY members.

Prize Winners

Juan de Pablo

Juan de PabloUniversity of Chicago

Juan de Pablo wins the 2018 Polymer Physics Prize, “For development of innovative models and algorithms for the simulation of macromolecular systems.” The Polymer Physics Prize has been endowed by a generous matching grant from the Dow Chemical Company, and contributions from LG Chemical Company and former Polymer Physics Prize winners.

Bradley Olsen

Bradley OlsenMIT

Bradley Olsen wins the 2018 Dillon Medal. “For significantly expanding our understanding of the physics of polymers, including the self-assembly of block copolymers incorporating a fully folded protein, the influence of polymer shape on diffusion; for engineering novel gels; and for updating the theory of the modulus of a network.”

The Dillon Medal is sponsored by Elsevier, publisher of Polymer.

Short Note from DPOLY Chair

Please join me in congratulating Juan de Pablo, Brad Olsen, and the new class of DPOLY APS fellows (Thomas Epps, Francis Starr, Raffaele Mezzenga, Ras Pandey, Chris Stafford).

March Meeting: As you know, the 2018 APS March meeting will take place in Los Angeles, CA, during March 5-9, 2018. We will hold a DPOLY reception, as usual, on Sunday (March 4, 2018) PM to celebrate our award winners. In addition, the journal “Soft Matter” will hold a reception right after the business meeting on Tuesday (March 5, 2018, at ~ 6:30pm), for both DPOLY and GSOFT. Andy Lovinger will hold an NSF informational session on Monday (March 5, 2018) PM right after sessions end. More details will be provided closer to March 2018, but please make a note of these events in your calendars.

Invited Sessions: APS is proposing to change how they allocate invited sessions at the March meeting. As it stands, APS is informally proposing to reduce the number of invited sessions for DPOLY. Historically we have 8; we have 9 in 2018; and 6 is proposed in 2020. This is a direct consequence of our membership numbers and a few other factors. These things are still being negotiated, so this is an early heads up. Many thanks – Sanat Kumar

UKPPG Lecture Exchange

Michael Hore (Case Western Reserve University) was DPOLY’s representative at the 28th Biennial Meeting of the Polymer Physics Group held from September 13th to 15th, 2017 at Swansea University. He presented “Investigations of Star, Cyclic and Concatenated Polymers with Neutron Scattering” and benefited from various in-depth discussions of neutron scattering methods.

Membership

The success of the division relies in part on maintaining a strong and vibrant membership. Please take a moment to make sure your DPOLY membership is up to date, and encourage potentially interested students, postdocs and other colleagues to sign up for DPOLY membership. There are many benefits to division membership, including input to programming and short courses, receipt of the DPOLY booklet, opportunities to be nominated for division awards and APS Fellowship, and many others, as detailed here.

Elections

Candidates for Vice-Chair are:

Candidates for Member-at-Large are:

Many thanks to the nominating committee (chaired by Ali Dhinojwala and comprising Karen Winey, Greg McKenna, Rohan Hule, and Valeriy Ginsburg) for preparing this slate of candidates. If you have additional nominations, please send them (with supporting signatures from a total of at least 14 DPOLY members) to Steve Hudson, DPOLY Secretary/Treasurer.

The election will be held in fall 2017.

Abstract Submission for the 2018 APS March Meeting

Abstract submission for the 2018 APS March Meeting is now open.

The next APS March Meeting will be held on March 5-9, 2018 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. In addition to 12 standard sorting categories, there are 26 focus session categories highlighting a wide range of topics of recent scientific interest to the community, as well as sessions celebrating the work conducted and inspired by both Prof. William Graessley and Prof. Ryong-Joon Roe. The deadline for contributed abstracts is Friday November 3, 2017 at 11:59PM ET. Please note that APS has transitioned to a new abstract submission system this year, so we strongly encourage you to submit your abstract early in case you run into difficulties.

If you are interested in chairing a session, have questions regarding the program, or would like to make a suggestion, please contact the DPOLY program chair, Ryan Hayward. Please contact Ryan if you would like to help sort abstracts and assemble the scientific program, which will take place electronically during November 2017.

Padden nominations should be submitted by November 3, 2017 to Jan Genzer using the subject line "Padden_name of student". Candidates MUST be DPOLY members and submit their abstracts through the regular APS system, as well as sending it in with the application.

The DPOLY Short Course this year is organized by Bradley Olsen and Costantino Creton, “The gel, elastomer, and network experience (GENE)”.

Resources to help you attend the meetings

Need help getting a visa to the US? See helpful info or a letter of invitation.

Need childcare? Link to the Meeting Child Care Grants page.

Call for Proposals

The Boulder Summer School for Condensed Matter and Materials Physics is issuing a call for proposals for future schools, viz. in summer 2019 or 2020.

The Boulder School provides education for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows working in all areas of condensed matter physics, materials science and related areas broadly interpreted (including e.g. biophysics, cold atom physics, many-body physics, numerical methods, etc.). The goal is to enable students to work at the frontiers of science and technology by providing expert training not easily available within the traditional system of graduate education and postdoctoral apprenticeship. The School, which is supported by the National Science Foundation and the University of Colorado, meets annually for four weeks during July in Boulder, Colorado.

More information about current and previous school sessions is available. The program of the schools consists of pedagogical courses, not a series of seminars on latest results.

If you and your colleagues are potentially interested in organizing a school for 2019 or 2020, please submit a short (2-3 page) proposal describing the topics to be covered, the names of 2-3 co-organizers and a list of possible lecturers (you need not have the speakers confirmed) and their topics, with strong emphasis on pedagogy. Proposals should be submitted to Leo Radzihovsky. There is no deadline, but full consideration will be guaranteed for proposals received prior to November 15.

Sincerely, Leo Radzihovsky, Cristina Marchetti, Matthew Fisher, Steven Girvin


This DPOLY newsletter was edited by Steve Hudson, DPOLY Secretary-Treasurer.