Symposium on Soft Materials and Structures at 49th SES Meeting (Abstract Deadline: April 2, 2012)

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to to draw your attention to the Symposium on **Soft Materials and Structures** to take place at the upcoming 49th Meeting of the Society of Engineering Sciences (SES) at GeorgiaTech, Atlanta, GA (October 10-12, 2011). More information can be found in the meeting's website: http://ses2012.org/

Over the past few years, soft materials have driven the scientific community into new exciting directions. Large deformations of soft materials and structures can be rich and highly nontrivial and offer the unique and exciting possibility to design multifunctional materials with novel properties through the appropriate design of the structural layout. This symposium will address recent advances in the theoretical, computational, and experimental understanding of solids undergoing finite deformations, focusing both on soft materials and soft structures. In this symposium we hope to bring together the vibrant community working on these topics to share the latest advancements in the field. Topics of particular interest include:

• Electroactive and magnetoactive elastomers;

• Shape-memory polymers;

• Responsive gels and Ionic Polymer-Metal Composites (IPMC);

• Liquid crystal elastomers and light-sensitive polymers;

• Other soft materials responsive to external stimuli;

• Soft structures including rods, plates, shells and biological structures;

• Geometric and material instabilities;

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is Monday, April 2, 2012.. Abstracts should include the symposium number III.1 ("Soft Materials and Structures") to ensure allocation to the correct session within Track III - "Multifunctional Materials and Multiphysics Problems". Abstracts can be submitted using the following link:
http://ses2012.org/call-for-abstracts

Please pass on this info to anyone in your vicinity who may be interested to attend.

Look forward to seeing you in October.

Best,
Xuanhe Zhao
Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
Duke University
xz69@duke.edu

Pedro Reis
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
preis@mit.edu

Oscar Lopez-Pamies
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
pamies@illinois.edu

Katia Bertoldi
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Harvard University
bertoldi@seas.harvard.edu