Inside this Issue

• Deadlines
• DPOLY Program for 2016 APS March Meeting
• 2016 Short Course: Polymer Nanocomposites
• Sir Sam Edwards (1928-2015)
• DPOLY Membership Update
• Jobs in Polymer Physics – APS Physics Job Center
• 2015 March Meeting News
• Upcoming Meetings of Interest

DPOLY Program for 2016 APS March Meeting

The next APS March Meeting is March 14-18, 2016 in Baltimore, MD. Organization of this meeting already has begun. Focus sessions and invited sessions are crucial to support our vibrant and evolving field. All DPOLY members are encouraged to propose topics for these sessions. Please contact the 2016 Program Chair, Dvora Perahia (dperahi@clemson.edu) with suggestions and/or questions.

• Focus Sessions typically contain one invited (36 min) talk per session and a series of contributed (12 min) talks focused on an innovative research topic. We seek organizers, who pick the topic, select potential invited speakers, and advertise the topic to encourage the submission of contributed abstracts. A major purpose of these sessions is to bring new, emerging, and rapidly-evolving topics to the APS meeting. Example topics from the 2015 meeting can be found on the Focus Topic Descriptions page. Please send suggestions for focus sessions by June 15 to dperahi@clemson.edu. Thank you.
• Invited Sessions are single sessions with 5 invited talks in each session. Each invited talk is 36 min. Suggestions for forefront polymer physics research topics are welcome to dperahi@clemson.edu. Note: the number of invited sessions is limited.

Any additional comments and ideas to enhance the 2016 program are welcome.

2016 Short Course: Polymer Nanocomposites

The 2016 Short Course is being planned and organized by Pinar Akcora (http://web.stevens.edu/akcora-group/home.html), Rohan Hule (rohan.a.hule@exxonmobil.com), and Russ Composto (composto@lrsm.upenn.edu).

Sir Sam Edwards (1928-2015)

The birth of soft matter physics, the physics of the everyday, May 12, 2015 article, The Guardian

The Division of Polymer Physics lost the founder of modern polymer theory when Samuel Edwards died on May 7, 2015. Sam introduced field theory and powerful techniques such as the replica formalism to enable collective behavior of polymers addressable theoretically. The Edwards Hamiltonian, the Edwards screening length, quenched disorder, Doi-Edwards dynamics, etc., constitute some of the basic vocabulary of polymer physics. He showered the polymer physics community with generosity, kindness, and wisdom. Sam shared the Polymer Physics Prize (previously known as the Ford Prize) with Pierre-Gilles de Gennes in 1982. By M. Muthukumar.

DPOLY Membership Update

155 people joined DPOLY at our membership table at the March meeting. Thanks to all who joined and thanks to those who volunteered to staff the table. Other efforts to build membership are ongoing.

To join DPOLY or renew your membership, please go to the DPOLY website. On the right side, under “quick links” you will see “Join this unit”. If you click there and then log in to the database, you will be able to click on your membership tab and “Add Unit”. The division pays for the first year of membership for first time members. Please encourage others to join. Thanks.

Other units can be added in the same way. For example, DPB, the Division of Physics of Beams, invites all whose research depends on particle accelerators. Divisions and groups with which we ally in organization of the March meeting include: GSOFT, GSNP, DBIO, DMP, FIAP, GERA, DCMP, DFD, and DCOMP.

Jobs in Polymer Physics – APS Physics Job Center

The DPOLY webpage will begin posting keyword filtered positions from the APS Job Center. Job seekers can view opportunities filtered for select keywords directly on the DPOLY page or on the main APS careers page. Job seekers can also sign up to post their resumes. Employers can post announcements: listings are free for seasonal internships, and the charge of other announcements begins at $525.

2015 March Meeting News

Special thanks to the Program Committee chaired by Thomas Epps.

Awards
The Polymer Prize, the Dillon Medal and the UKPPG lecture exchange winners were celebrated in the previous newsletter.

• Padden Award: At the March meeting, Katherine Harry, of the University of California, Berkeley, advised by Nitash Balsara was selected the winner of the Frank J. Padden Jr. award. Her presentation was “Lithium dendrite growth through solid polymer electrolyte membranes.” The University of Akron is gratefully acknowledged for its support of the Padden Award symposium.
• Poster Awards: We would like to thank all poster presenters for their excellent contributions. Special thanks to the dedicated team of judges who worked hard to evaluate the posters. We would also like to thank The Journal of Polymer Science B: Polymer Physics and Wiley for their generous financial support for the awards. The selected winners were:
  • 1st place: Amanda Marciel, University of Illinois, “Template-directed synthesis of structurally-defined branched polymer architectures”
  • 2nd: Vaidyanathan Sethuraman, The University of Texas, Austin, “Coarse-Graining in Simulations of Multicomponent Polymer Systems”
  • 3rd: Wei Zhang, University of Wisconsin, “Surface Self-diffusion of Organic Glasses and Low Molecular Weight Polystyrene”

Invited presentations
Some invited presentation slides are available online.

Special features

• Industry day: DPOLY and FIAP organized and sponsored two tracks of invited and focus sessions over two days. Thanks to Barbara Jones and Valeriy Ginzburg for organizing.
• NSF informational session: Andy Lovinger and Mary Galvin provided an overview of the NSF Polymers Program and the Materials Genome Initiative.

Minutes
The minutes to the business meeting held at the San Antonio March meeting are at: http://www.aps.org/units/dpoly/governance/minutes/upload/march15.pdf.

Upcoming Meetings of Interest

Gordon Research Conference (and associated GRS) on Polymers, June 14-19, 2015
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley MA

Gordon Research Conference on Neutron Scattering, June 21-26, 2015
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Gordon Research Conference (and associated GRS) on Science of Adhesion, July 26-31, 2015
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley MA

Gordon Research Conference (and associated GRS) on Soft Condensed Matter Physics, August 9-14, 2015
Colby-Sawyer College, New London, NH

87th Annual Society of Rheology Meeting, October 11-25, 2015
Baltimore, MD

Polymers and Self-Assembly: From Biology to Nanomaterials, October 25-30, 2015
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

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This DPOLY newsletter was prepared by: Steve Hudson, Secretary-Treasurer; Chinedum Osuji, Member-at-Large and Publicity Committee Chair; Stephen Cheng, Executive Committee Chair.