The grant will allow for the participation of four graduate students from the United Sates to participate in an International Nanotribology Forum to be held in India in January 2014.
This forum will provide a unique opportunity for students from Asia and the United States to interact both with each other and with renowned international scientists in an informal setting. The students will be exposed to challenges at the forefront of tribological research through tutorial, lectures, poster sessions and informal meetings.
PI: Wilfred Tysoe Awardee: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Program Officer Name: Alexis Lewis The International Nanotribology Forum 2014 was held from January 6th to 10th2014 in the Bolgatty Palace, a resort hotel well equipped for conferences and banquets. Kochi in the State of Kerala, India. This provided a venue in which all of the participants could interact closely with each other, both during the formal presentations and during meal and coffee breaks during the conference. These interactions were supplemented by social events including a tour of the estuary around Kerala on Wednesday afternoon, a banquet and show on Tuesday evening and an afternoon trip to Fort Cochin on Monday afternoon. In particular, such events allowed students and young researchers to become better acquainted with the invited speakers and facilitated discussions between them. The conference had a total of 94 participants, of which 8 were invited speakers. 41 people received scholarships of various types, which were given to young researchers (11) and students (30). Attendees came from 12 countries: India (38), USA (12), Switzerland (10), Australia (9), UK (7), France (5), Japan (4), Germany (3), Sweden (2), Singapore (2), Denmark (1) and Cameroun (1). The conference had 37 Plenary talks, 9 of them by invited speakers (listed below), 6 by students and 5 by former students of Prof Sanjay Biswas, in memory of the latter. 50 posters were presented during the coffee breaks in two sessions of 2 days each. Invited Speakers: Prof. Colin Bain, University of Durham, UK (vibrational spectroscopy in tribology) Dr. Antoine Chateauminois, ESPCI, Paris, France (soft interfaces) Dr. Rowena Crockett, Empa, Switzerland (tribology of glycoproteins) Prof. Rosa Espinosa-Marzal, University of Illinois, USA (confined fluids) Prof. Mark Robbins, Johns Hopkins University, USA (nanoscale roughness in tribology) Prof. John Sader, University of Melbourne, Australia (AC methods in AFM) Prof. Nic Spencer, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (tribology of surface-bound polymers) Prof. Jason Stokes, University of Queensland, Australia (nanorheology and friction) Prof. Eddy Tysoe, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA (subsurface effects in sliding) The conference program is shown in the attached image. The conference was extensively advertized by electronic mail and through a web site at: www.nanotribology.org/Kerala/kerala.html. This indicated that there would be funds available to support both the registration and travel of students to the conference. The original proposal indicated that the Fellowship Applications would be solicited via the web site prior to the students travelling to the conference. However, since the funds arrived from NSF just prior to the start of the conference, there was no time for students to fill out formal on-line applications. Instead, the selection of student awardees was made during the conference by a subcommittee consisting of Professor Nicholas D. Spencer of the ETH Zurich, Dr. Juliette Cayer-Barrioz of the École Centrale de Lyon and Professor Wilfred Tysoe of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. A preliminary selection was made of students currently registered in academic institutions in the United States. The students were assessed based on the quality of their poster presentations at the conference and direct interviews with the student at the Conference by the subcommittee members. The following students were awarded NSF fellowships: Student Name Presentation/Poster Title Travel Funds/$ Registration Funds/$ Saurabh Das Frictional Adhesion and Stick-Slip Friction of Patterned Surfaces with Smooth and Rough Glass Surfaces 1500 325 Heather Adams Development of a Method for Monitoring Gas-Phase Products of Tribological Experiments 1500 325 Andres Jurado Elucidating the Dynamics of the Electrostatic Double Layer on Ionic Liquids in a Model Porous System 1500 325 Tristan Sharp Effects of Atomic-Scale Geometry on Rough Contact 1500 325 Dong-Woog Lee Synergistic and Adaptive Articular Cartilage Lubrication. 500 200 Travel funds were restricted to a maximum of US$1500 per student to enable as many students as possible to benefit from NSF Fellowships. Funding by the National Science Foundation was extensively acknowledged during the conference, by specific slides presented at the beginning of sessions during each day, on announcement materials during the conference and on the conference program book.
