In regard to Intellectual Merit and Broader Impact the planned symposium on "Recent Advances in Electrospinning" will cover the recent fundamental and technological developments in the electrospinning of polynmers and the impact of its fibrous products in various significant areas which include medical, energy, and environmentally oriented applications. Attendance at the symposium will be of significant educational benefit to attending graduate students, postdocs and young faculty starting in or planning to venture into the field of electrispinning.
" consisting of 5 half-day sessions (including 60 speakers) and a poster session was held as part of the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Division of Polymer Materials Science and Engineering’s technical program at the Spring, 2014, ACS meeting held in Dallas. This symposium was organized to demonstrate the impact of recent research throughout the world on this important field. During the symposium we took the occasion to acknowledge the contributions of Professor Darrell Reneker who reinvigorated this field in the mid 1990s. This symposium brought together the leading scientists in the field of electrospinning and its various applications from the U.S. and around the world to exchange information, share best practices and make presentations on their recent work. It provided networking opportunities for graduate students, postdocs, young faculty and underrepresented minorities currently in this field of research. The symposium also provided attendees from industrial and government laboratories, who are either new to the field or early in their research career, with a perspective on the economic impact electrospinning will continue to have in the forseeable future. Specifically showcasing the volume of work that has been carried out (>10,350 publications) over the last 15-20 years also provided a general perspective of the impact this has had across many commercial venues including filtration, tissue engineering, wound healing and environmental sensing to name a few.
