16th Annual Northeastern Granular Materials Workshop; New Haven, Connecticut; June 8, 2018

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Abstract

This award will support the 16th Annual Northeastern Granular Materials Workshop (NEGMW) to be held at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut on June 8, 2018. The goal of the NEGW series is to bring together the granular research groups in the Northeast to encourage collaboration and sharing of ideas on projects involving the mechanics of dense granular media and other disordered particulate materials. The topics of the workshop will span a wide range of soft matter and mechanics research including emulsions, active matter, and glasses. Based on prior attendance at NEGMW, at least 75 participants including undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty members will attend the workshop from more than 15 colleges and universities throughout the Northeast. The NEGMW will feature four invited 45-minute talks, six 15-minute contributed talks by junior researchers, and poster sessions. Two of the four invited speakers are female faculty members, and two are from liberal arts colleges. The NEGMW will address several important questions concerning the mechanics of granular media and active materials. Workshop participants will discuss the key physical differences between driven, dissipative systems (e.g., driven granular media) and active biological systems, such as crawling cells and swimming bacteria. In addition, NEGMW presentations will explore whether the flow defects and rearrangements that occur in deformable soft materials such as foams and emulsions are similar to those in granular media and metallic glasses. Invited and contributed talks, and poster sessions as well as breakfast, lunch, and two coffee breaks will provide interludes for follow-up discussions. At the close of the workshop, there will be a final session in which the participants will discuss future research directions, possible multi-institutional collaborations and funding mechanisms, and the organization for the next NEGMW in June 2019. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.