Why a Soft Matter Workshop?
The purpose of the workshop is to bring together faculty, students, postdocs, and interested scientists from Virginia and nearby regions for a one-day meeting to network, exchange ideas, and promote the research of soft matter.
What is Soft Matter?
Soft matter encompasses a broad set of materials characterized by being disordered and fragile. Grains, paint, pastes, suspensions, foams, emulsions, gels, vesicle and even cells are examples of such squishy materials. Soft materials often reside at the interface of physics, chemistry, biology and engineering. Thus, understanding, manipulating and creating new soft materials requires an assortment of experimental techniques and expertise from many different fields. In this context conversations with experts from many disciplines have the potential to generate new ideas and results that will lead to fast progress in research.
What is a sound bite and how do I prepare to give one?
A sound bite is a short and concise talk. You should prepare for a presentation of 3 minutes. A time limit will be strictly enforced to ensure that everyone gets an equal opportunity to talk. You should provide a 3-4 slide PDF that will accompany your presentation. To prepare you should keep in mind that you have a very limited time to get a single idea across. You should make sure that everyone knows who you are, what organization you represent, and most importantly, a single straight forward exposition of what you are working on. The sound bite should contain enough information about your research so that people with similar problems and interests know to seek you out during coffee and lunch. You should also prominently display your email and website if you have one. After you register you will receive information about when and where to send your sound bite PDF document.
The purpose of the workshop is to bring together faculty, students, postdocs, and interested scientists from Virginia and nearby regions for a one-day meeting to network, exchange ideas, and promote the research of soft matter.
What is Soft Matter?
Soft matter encompasses a broad set of materials characterized by being disordered and fragile. Grains, paint, pastes, suspensions, foams, emulsions, gels, vesicle and even cells are examples of such squishy materials. Soft materials often reside at the interface of physics, chemistry, biology and engineering. Thus, understanding, manipulating and creating new soft materials requires an assortment of experimental techniques and expertise from many different fields. In this context conversations with experts from many disciplines have the potential to generate new ideas and results that will lead to fast progress in research.
What is a sound bite and how do I prepare to give one?
A sound bite is a short and concise talk. You should prepare for a presentation of 3 minutes. A time limit will be strictly enforced to ensure that everyone gets an equal opportunity to talk. You should provide a 3-4 slide PDF that will accompany your presentation. To prepare you should keep in mind that you have a very limited time to get a single idea across. You should make sure that everyone knows who you are, what organization you represent, and most importantly, a single straight forward exposition of what you are working on. The sound bite should contain enough information about your research so that people with similar problems and interests know to seek you out during coffee and lunch. You should also prominently display your email and website if you have one. After you register you will receive information about when and where to send your sound bite PDF document.
