I just read Teng Li's entry regarding the launch of SEAS at Harvard.  Thanks for posting this interesting information!  

On this occasion, I'd also like express my congratulations to Harvard
University in launching the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
(SEAS) last week!  It is terrific that the engineering science community in the Boston area is thriving and developing.  Best of luck, and looking forward to fruitful interactions in the future!  

Markus Buehler of MIT

I am attaching a pdf of "How to give successful oral and poster presentations" by J.W. Niemantsverdriet of the Eindhoven University of Technology which I had found on the internet some years ago. It has some very useful tips.

V. Hegadekatte

As stated by Richard Vinci and Oliver Kraft in the announcement of 2008 Gordon Research Conference on Thin Film and Small-Scale Mechanical Behavior, there is a compelling need to understand the critical roles of different deformation mechanisms in structures with small characteristic dimensions, like nanocrystals and thin films. We have recently studied deformation behaviors in nanostructured materials and thin films with deformation mechanisms including grain-boundary diffusion, grain-boundary sliding, and grain-interior plasticity. Some interesting mechanical phenomena associated with heterogeneous grain-boundary properties are found and summarized here.

How NOT to use Powerponit! Very instructive and memorable.

This is the file mentioned in my comment on Xuanhe Zhao's blog

   A large quantity of small molecules may migrate into a network of long polymers, causing the network to swell, forming an aggregate known as a polymeric gel.  This paper formulates a theory of the coupled mass transport and large deformation.

Following Andy's recommendation I have been reading Ellis Dill's Continuum Mechanics[1]. In page 75 of the book, we find the
well known result that the constitutive equation for an isotropic hypoelastic
material can be derived from a stored energy function only if

where and are the Lame constants.

The Department of Civil Engineering at North Carolina State University is inviting applications for a possible tenure-track position in the broad area of advanced materials. The solicitation is part of a broader search, with the goal of filling one or more positions in the department; please see the official advertisement at the end of this message. Note that the advertisement does not give any specific details about the desirable properties of the advanced materials applicant. They are summarized below.