This award provide funds to assist in bringing together a diverse group of international scientists and engineers working in the area of adhesion. Adhesion's pervasive role in areas as diverse as structural materials, biomaterials, membranes, and protective coatings, to name only a few, has come to be widely appreciated in recent years. The interest in adhesion as a science has been spurred by two developments. One has been the growth in techniques to manipulate surfaces and interfaces in multiphase materials systems, with significant improvement in the overall behavior of such systems. The other has been the rapid progress in molecular and atomic level characterization of surfaces and interfaces. Still being developed is a thorough understanding of how molecular or atomic level details at the interface between the adhering phases are related to the macroscopic performance characteristics. Correspondingly, the construction of a complete and general theory of adhesion is still in process. To achieve this goal, several scientists need to exchange not only results, but ideas. They need to challenge each other, teach each other, and develop insights from one another. This can be best accomplished by an extended period of personal interaction. The Gordon Conference, providing a week of close contact among scientists, is one of the few venues that provides the required face-to-face interaction.
