Department of Physics to host 5th New York Complex Matter Workshop

Department of Physics to host 5th New York Complex Matter WorkshopDecember 06, 2007SU News ServicesSUnews@syr.edu

The Department of Physics in The College of Arts and Sciences will sponsor and host the 5th New York Complex Matter Workshop Dec. 14 on the SU campus.

The workshop will bring together a wide array of researchers in the multidisciplinary field of complex matter. The focus is on sharing ideas, encouraging future collaborations, and promoting networking among new and existing faculty in upstate New York. The event combines a keynote speaker from outside New York; several invited talks, mainly by researchers new to the region; and many short student talks. More than 70 researchers are expected to attend.

“The workshop, started in 2005 by Professor Mark Bowick of SU and Professor Itai Cohen of Cornell, aims to generate interactions and collaborations among researchers from upstate New York working on the properties of complex materials and biological matter,” says Cristina Marchetti, professor and chair of the Department of Physics. “It is highly interdisciplinary in nature, as demonstrated by the roster of this year’s invited speakers. Students and postdoctoral researchers are encouraged to advertise their work via `soundbites’ — two- to three-minute-presentations that have proved an invaluable tool for promoting discussions.”

The keynote speaker for this year’s workshop, Tom Witten, professor of physics at the University of Chicago, will speak on “Stress Focusing.” Invited speakers, each discussing an aspect of their research, include Susan Daniel, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University; Tao Deng, a materials scientist with General Electric; Patrick Mather, Milton and Ann Stevenson Professor of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at SU; David Matthews, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Rochester Medical Center; and Amy Shen, assistant professor of mechanical, aerospace and structural engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Brief presentations will also be given by graduate and postdoctoral students.

The workshop, held twice a year and alternating between SU and Cornell, was first held at SU in fall 2005.

Further information on the workshop may be found at http://www.physics.syr.edu/condensedmatter/Workshop.