The Gordon Research Conference on "Thin Film and Small Scale Mechanical Behavior" will be held in 18-23 July 2004, at Colby College, in Waterville, Maine. Financial support is requested to help to defray the costs for the speakers and discussion leaders, including three women and eight young researchers. The support will also assist postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. The intellectual merit of the proposal is twofold: the singular importance of the subject field to the discipline of the mechanics and materials, and the interdisciplinary nature of the field. For over a decade, the field of small scale mechanical behavior has been at the leading edge of the discipline of the mechanics and materials. Scientific challenges include mechanically manipulating objects, imaging dynamic processes, measuring properties, and modeling mechanical behavior, all at exquisitely small length scales. Industrial applications range from integrated circuits, to MEMS, and to lab-on-a-chip. The field of small scale mechanical behavior is the most visible link between the new science of nanomechanics and the advanced technologies that affect daily lives of people. The Gordon Conference has a broad impact on knowledge dissemination and intellectual infrastructure. The Conference is known to initiate new, unexpected research directions. The 2004 Conference will introduce two brainstorming sessions: The Future of Thin Film Mechanics and Linking Biology and Mechanics, on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. In addition, two poster sessions will offer all attendees a chance to present relevant research work. One of the poster sessions will specifically give young researchers an opportunity to introduce themselves and their research programs to the broader community.
