SoftLiv goes ISMC
Ten people from our lab went to the International Soft Matter Conference in Poznań, Poland.
Alba, Alex, Aleks, Carla, Etienne, Katie, Lotta, Nico, Rob and Yanxia went to the external page International Soft Matter Conference this year which took place in Poznań in Poland. Here's an overview of the talks and posters in chronological order.
Carla gave a a talk about "Arresting spinodal decomposition in polymer networks" - answering questions recently posed in her recent external page perspective and showing cool images of new structures!
Etienne gave a talk about "Phase separated active protein droplets" continuing work from our recent external page paper - why do droplets move? Whats the role of pH? And more.
Katie talked about "Phase separation and the cytoskeleton" - how do protein droplets interact with fibers in a biological context? Related to our external page recent paper.
Nico talked about "Surface tension and the strain-dependent topography of soft solids" related to his external page recent paper. Cool stuff happens!
Alex talked about "Surface-initiated polymerization from lipid membranes: mechanism, curvature, and thermoresponsivity". How can we grow polymers from membranes and tune their behavior?
Rob talked about "Measuring surface tensions of soft solids with huge contact-angle hysteresis". How can the mystery of measuring different advancing and receding contact angles be solved?
Eric gave an overview talk "Droplets get to work" on what the group is working on specifically concerning liquid-liquid phase separation.
Alba presented a poster about structural control in polymerization-induced phase separation in the solid state, sharing how she makes nanostructured, correlated materials using phase separation.
Aleks presented his work on "Predicting liquid-liquid phase separation diagrams" can second osmotic virial coefficients predict phase diagram of a model liquid-liquid phase separation system?
Lotta answered questions towards "What is the impact of phase separation in elastic polymer networks?" trying to disentangle contributions from phase separation and composition to mechanical responses.
Yanxia showed her poster about "What's soft, tough and highly swelling?" Hydroelastomers! What happens if you embed highly swelling hydrogel particles inside tough, water-permeable, elastomeric matrices? Featuring external page this recent paper.