This award provides group travel support for a workshop on "Nanoscale Phenomena in Materials and at Interfaces," to be held in Krakow, Poland on June 7-10, 2010. The location is the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Krakow. The Workshop is a follow-up to and builds upon two earlier and successful Workshops held in Poznan (2006) and Gdansk (2008).
Intellectual Merit. The purpose of the proposed Workshop is to encourage closer scientific contacts and longer term scientific collaboration between researchers in this area from the U.S. and Poland. The Workshop will involve approximately 15-16 participants from the U.S. and 15-20 from Poland, with a balance between junior, midcareer, and senior researchers, and with similar or complementary research interests on the two sides. The workshop participants will represent a broad spectrum of research interests, for example, soft and hard materials, bio-materials, polymers, polymerization, self assembly, complex fluids, microemulsions, surface science, interfacial phenomena, catalysis, colloids, adsorption, adhesion, rheology, computational nanoscience, and thin films. Young researchers in these areas from Poland will attend the meeting, present poster papers, and interact with the senior participants throughout the meeting.
Broader Impact. The proposed workshop is expected to initiate individual and institutional collaboration among the participants. The previous workshops proved highly successful and led to numerous research contacts and collaborations between U.S. and Polish participants, and it is anticipated that this workshop will be equally successful in this regard. The participation of young Polish researchers at the Workshop will offer the U.S. participants a much broader view of research in this area in Poland.
The project budget also includes funds to support visits to U.S. laboratories by some of these young workers in the year following the workshop. U.S. participants will visit other institutions in Poland after the Workshop, to learn more about research activities and to explore further possibilities for research cooperation between the two countries. Such research cooperation will enrich the research and education infrastructure of both countries.
