Proposal for Conference/Workshop Support for CECAM workshop: Self-assembly: from fundamental Principles to Design Rules for Experiment; Lausanne, Switzerland; March 1 - 3, 2013

Brandeis University, Waltham MA

Investigators

Abstract

ID: MPS/DMR/BMAT(7623) 1256701 PI: Hagan, Michael ORG: Brandeis University Title: Proposal for Conference/Workshop Support for CECAM workshop: Self-assembly: from fundamental principles to design rules for experiment INTELLECTUAL MERIT: The proposal asks for funds to support the travel and subsistence costs for seven early-career US scientists to attend a workshop to be held at the Centre Europeen de Calcul Atomique et Moleculaire (CECAM) in Lausanne, Switzerland. This workshop aims to bring together computer simulators and experimentalists whose work bears upon the fundamental rules that govern soft matter self-assembly. Participants will be united not by their study of a particular physical system, but by their focus on the forces that control assembly. The proposed speaker list is highly multidisciplinary, and includes theoretical physicists, virologists, synthetic biologists, and materials scientists. Despite their common interests, researchers who study biological assemblages and those who study crystallization rarely overlap. The format of a CECAM workshop provides an ideal environment to bring members of these fields together to benefit from commonalities in subject and complementary techniques used in each of these fields. BROADER IMPACTS: It is anticipated that the workshop will have a much broader impact than that realized from a typical conference. Speakers and attendees from a wide range of disciplines, geographical locations, and career stages will engage in intensive small-group discussions. Thus, participants with different areas of expertise, experience levels, genders, and ethnic backgrounds will interact closely. NSF funding support will be given to both emerging scientists (students, postdocs, and junior faculty) and under-represented groups in order to increase their participation. Such support will help fulfill the urgent, national need to train the future scientific community in the areas of nanotechnology and biological research. Furthermore, by encouraging US scientists to attend through NSF support, the workshop will serve to increase the engagement of the US with the European soft matter community.