This award supports the 2015 Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar on " Liquid Crystallinity in Soft Matter at and Beyond Equilibrium " with support provided by the Condensed Matter Physics, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, Biomaterials, Polymers, and Solid State and Materials Chemistry Programs in the Division of Materials Research, Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems in Engineering and the Office of Multidisciplinary Affairs in the Division of Materials Research. This conference has grown to be the premier US conference on Liquid Crystals and attracts a broad group of engineers (including chemical engineers), chemists, physicists, life scientists, materials scientists, and mathematicians. Liquid crystal science is truly interdisciplinary and spans research frontiers in transport and interfacial phenomena in soft matter systems, supramolecular chemistry, condensed matter physics and materials, colloidal phenomena and microfluidics, biomaterials, as well as computational methods and theories of anisotropic soft matter. This breadth of topics and interdisciplinary flavor generates novel, creative solutions to applied problems as well as bringing deeper insight into fundamental science. A conference of this type breeds inter- and multi-disciplinary ideas and approaches to complex and relevant problems. In addition, this conference will be preceded by a Gordon Research Seminar that provides a unique opportunity for young researchers to share in the GRC experience and build informal networks with their peers.
