Technical Part: In an effort to advance cross-disciplinary, cross-continent, and cross-scale interactions among computational, theoretical and experimental researchers involved in soft materials, the PIs are organizing the symposium ?Modeling and Theory Driven Design of Soft Materials? that will be held as part of the 2013 Fall Meeting of the Materials Research Society in Boston MA. The symposium will include eight half-day oral sessions and one poster session and will provide a forum for fostering scientific exchanges on the latest developments on the design of soft materials resulting from the integration of simulation, theory and experimental approaches. The aim of this symposium is to bring together researchers from academia, industry, and federal laboratories who are harnessing the interplay between simulation, theory, and experiments to explore and validate the design of synthetic and organic soft materials. The program will enable the dissemination of state-of-the-art developments in the field and serve to educate the next generation of young researchers while broadening the participation of underrepresented categories in materials research. The MRS meetings provide a broad forum for dissemination of scientific results and exchanges between material scientists from different disciplines working on diverse topics. A distinguished group of invited speakers has been confirmed.
Non-Technical Part: The symposium is well aligned with the Materials Genome Initiative and will stimulate the use of computational and theoretical methods in the design of new soft materials. The organizers of this symposium are strongly committed to involving the participation of women and underrepresented minorities. The organizers will encourage the participation by prioritizing the travel and registration support for such groups of researchers. Similarly, attention will be given to participation of researchers and students from undergraduate institutions. The symposium organizers and the invited speakers include both women and members of ethnic minorities; there are two women among the co-organizers and four women among the invited speakers with two speakers from underrepresented minorities.
, was to (1) bring together researchers who are harnessing the interplay between simulation, theory and experiments to explore and validate the design of synthetic and organic soft materials such as foams, gels, organic and hybrid organic inorganic biological materials; (2) enable the dissemination of state-of-the art developments in the field; (3) educate the next generation of young researchers; and (4) broaden the participation of underrepresented minorities in materials research. The MRS meeting provided a broad forum for dissemination of scientific results and exchanges among material scientists from different discplines working on diverse toics. The organizers were strongly committed to involving participation of women and underrepresented minorities and encouraged their participation by prioritizing the travel support for such groups of researchers. Attention was also given to participation of researchers and students from undergraduate institutions. The symposium provided early career scientists with an opportunity to present and share their research work via poster and oral presentations and obtain exposure to the greater scientific community and reknown materials scientists. The symposium had participation of domestic and international scientists from academia, industry and federal laboratories and enabled the promotion of scientific exhanges and collaborations among the various participants. It also provided a highly stimulating environment for students who are comtemplating careers in the materials research field. The funds provided by NSF were used to support the travel of student and early-career researchers participating in the symposium.
