2025

APS Global Physics Summit

April USD Training

Hacktive Matter

Soft Condensed Matter GRC

Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks

FiSMMN Weekend Workshop

2024

October 2024

3rd Annual San Diego Weekend Workshop

DMREF PIs and trainees spent the weekend in San Diego discussing progress, drafting papers, and designing work plans for the next quarter. The workshop was designed to foster collaboration, cross-pollination of ideas, and community building, and team-based approaches to accelerate discovery.

6th Annual Frontiers of Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks Symposium

Rae Robertson-Anderson and Ryan McGorty co-chaired the 6th annual Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks Symposium at University of San Diego on Friday October 25, 2024.

The symposium welcomed 125 participants from 35 different institutions, including keynote speakers, Sujit Datta (CalTech) and Sarah Keller (Washington U). 10 early career faculty members gave lightning talks and 55 students and postdocs presented posters, including 6 of our trainees.

Society of Rheology Annual Meeting @ Austin, TX

Megan Valentine was invited to give a keynote talk at the Society of Rheology’s 95th Annual Meeting. Her talk “Biotic-abiotic material interfaces offer new opportunities for force sensing and control” highlighted a lot of our team’s recent work and was very well received. One audience member said they left ‘feeling excited and energized’. Go team!

August 2024

International Soft Matter Conference @ Raleigh, NC

July 2024

Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) Biennial PI Workshop @ Washington, DC

June 2024

DMREF Hackathon @ UC Santa Barbara

March 2024

The 2nd Upstate NY Soft and Biological Matter Workshop

Jenny Ross co-organized this workshop at Syracuse University. For more details, visit this website!

APS March Meeting @ Minneapolis, MN

2023

Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks Symposium

The symposium returned with Rae Robertson-Anderson as co-chair. Professor Kerstin Nordstrom of Mount Holyoke College delivered a fascinating keynote address on jamming and clogging of granular materials. A full conference program can be found here.

July 2023

Summer Training @ University of San Diego

June 2023

DMREF Hackathon @ UC Santa Barbara

Hosted by the Valentine Lab!

APS March Meeting @ Las Vegas, NV

Rae Robertson-Anderson, the recipient of the 2023 APS Prize for a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution, gave a talk: “The Whole is More than the Sum of its Parts”. Read the abstract here.

Several of our trainees also gave talks: Yongkui Tang, Maya Hendija, Gregor Leech, Karthik Peddireddy, Mehrzad Sasanpour, Lauren Melcher, and Jonathan Michel. Our faculty collaborator, Janet Sheung (Scripps University), gave two talks. Great work, everyone!

Moumita Das co-chaired the sessions on Mechanics of Cells and Tissues I and IV. Rae Robertson-Anderson chaired the sessions on DNA-based Soft Matter: Design Dynamics, and Active Mechanics; Emerging Trends in Soft Microscale Mechanics I; and the DSOFT Early Career and Student Awards Session. Megan Valentine chaired the session on Emerging Trends in Soft Microscale Mechanics II.