Program in Polymers and Soft Matter (PPSM)
News
HEADLINES: 2012 MIT Polymer Day Symposium and Poster Contest• 2012 Poster Award Winners • 2011 MIT Polymer Poster Contest-Lobby 13
2012 MIT Polymer Day Symposium and Poster Contest
The PPST Graduate Student Association (PGSA) along with PPST organized the first annual Polymer Day Symposium on Wednesday March 7th, 2012, with sponsorship from Cabot Corporation and Lincoln Labs. Polymer Day was a half-day event that featured a broad array of polymer research across the MIT polymer community, with representatives from Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Biological Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Chemistry.
The event began with a poster session featuring over 50 posters and well over 100 attendees, including students, faculty, and industry representatives. Posters were judged by external representatives Dr. Eilidh Bedford and Dr. Jon Siddall (Cabot Corp.), Dr. Al Swiston (Lincoln Labs), Dr. Stephen Spiegelberg (Cambridge Polymer Group), Dr. Anuj Bellare (Brigham and Women’s Hospital), and Dr. Jeff Borenstein (Draper Labs). We are grateful to them for an extremely successful poster session!
The poster session was followed by three excellent talks:
- Dr. Joseph Walish “Photonic Gels: Tunable Color from Colorless Materials”
- Dr. Simon Haward “Stagnation Point Extensional Flow of Polymer Solutions”
- Adam Zeiger “Excluded Volume Effects and the Extracellular Matrix”
The talks were followed by a reception, where faculty, students, and industry representatives enjoyed an informal forum to discuss polymers, collaboration, and networking.
The event was an incredible success! We thank our sponsors, Cabot Corporation and Lincoln Labs for their generous help in making this event a reality, and Greg Sands for his Herculean efforts to consider all the details that enabled the event to run smoothly.
2012 Poster Award Winners:
[As available, downloadable PDF's of winning posters have been linked to names/titles listed below]
- Grand Prize: Siddarth Srinivasan, “Non-Wetting Surfaces for Fluid Friction Reduction”
- Runners Up
Peter DeMuth, “Nano-layered Microneedle Arrays: A Materials Platform for Transcutaneous Vaccine and Therapeutics Delivery”;
Rong Yang, “Ultrathin Antifouling Coatings with Stable Surface Zwitterionic Functionality by initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition (iCVD)”
- Honorable Mentions
David S. Liu, “Exploring Composite LbL Coated Electrospun Mats for Fuel Cell Applications”
Jeremy Jones, “DNA in confinement and in the presence of macromolecular crowding agent”
Alpesh Patel, “Poly(glycerol Sebacate) – carbon nanotubes nanocomposites”
2011 MIT Polymer Poster Contest-Lobby 13 (3/18/2011)
On Friday March 18, 2011, PPST and the MIT polymer community filled MIT’s Lobby 13 with the sounds of undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral polymer researchers–over 60 presenters in all, describing and exhibiting the essence of their work, for contest judges, faculty, and the general public.
The impressive range and depth of the topics explored by contestants, and quality of the presentations made this a memorable afternoon for those seeking to learn more about the vitality of current polymer research at MIT.
Senior Achievement Division
First Prize: Daniel K. Bonner
Second Prize: Priyadarshi Panda
Honorable Mention: Wui Siew Tan andBrett S. VanVeller
Early Achievement Division
First Prize: Matthew J. Glassman
Second Prize: Jonathan P. Singer
Honorable Mention: Matthew M. Mannarino and Christy D. Petruczok
Please join us in congratulating our
2011 MIT Polymer Poster Contest Award Winners!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PPST is deeply appreciative of the contributions made by our co-sponsors, the Xerox Foundation, and the duPont-MIT Alliance, whose support made this exciting event possible.
Our sincerest thanks to our judges: Dr. Anuj Bellare (Brigham and Womens’ Hospital), Dr. Erik S. Handy (GVD Corporation), Dr. Orhun Muratoglu (Mass. General Hospital), Dr. Stephen Spiegelberg (Cambridge Polymer Group), Dr. Albert J. Swiston, Jr. (Lincoln Lab), and Prof. Joyce Y. Wong (Boston University). Their collective and individual expertise, time, energy, and teamwork were an exceptional and critical keystone to our event for which we are deeply grateful!
The energy, enthusiasm, and vision of PPST’s Graduate Students’ Association (PGSA) and in particular, PGSA President Charles E. Sing, officers Matthew M. Mannarino, and Jane Wang, were critical to the logistical success every phase of this event. We are grateful for their transformative contributions and boots on the ground leadership! Special thanks also to Adam S. Zeiger for help with database management, and Keith M. Forward who willingly served as both contestant and event photographer.
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