Keynote speakers
Ximin He, University of California, USA
Dr. He’s research focuses on biologically inspired functional smart materials, chemical and biological sensors, actuators with broad applications in materials science, biomedicine, environment, energy, and robotics. Her research on bioinspired homeostatic materials, chemo-mechanical molecule separation, artificial phototropic materials for solar harvesting, and the phototactic swimming robots have garnered a number of regional and international awards and was featured in >100 international news outlets.
Yan Ji, Tsinghua University, China
Yan Ji’s primary research interests are polymers containing dynamic covalent bonds, stimuli-responsive polymers, polymeric nanocomposites, and soft robots.
Carlos Sánchez Somolinos, CSIC, University of Zaragoza, Spain
Dr. Somolinos’s expertise and scientific objectives are focused on developing polymers and their processing through advanced manufacturing techniques in the search for polymeric surfaces or functional systems of interest in optics, biomedicine and soft robotics.
Timothy (Tim) White, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
Research of White’s group is highly interdisciplinary, bridging chemical engineering, materials science, polymer science, mechanics, optics, and applied physics. He developed a materials chemistry to prepare liquid crystal elastomers and networks with directed self-assembly properties. He is also interested in reconfigurable optical elements and is focused on realizing a new generation of optical elements.
Hong Yang, Southeast University, China
Dr. Yang’s research interests are liquid crystal materials, functional polymeric materials, polymer synthesis methodology, organic synthesis, heterocyclic chemistry, and medicinal chemistry.
Yanlei Yu, Fudan University, China
Dr. Yu’s research interests focus on the development of photodeformable smart materials and light-controllable interface materials with photosensitive polymers and liquid crystal polymers.
Invited panel discussion participants
Eugene Terentjev, University of Cambridge, UK
Jan Lagerwall, University of Luxembourg
Ivan Smalyukh, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA
Helen Gleeson, University of Leeds, UK
Invited speakers
Joanna Aizenberg, Harvard University, USA
John Biggins, University of Cambridge, UK
Kevin Chen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Antonio De Simone, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy
Antal Jakli, Kent State University, USA
Shucong Li, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Danqing Liu, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Sara Nocentini, University of Florence, Italy
Zachariah A. Page, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Camilla Parmeggiani, University of Florence, Italy
Jerry Qi, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Javier Read de Alaniz, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Mohand Saed, University of Cambridge, UK
Albert Schenning, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Atsushi Shishido, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Taylor Ware, Texas A&M University, USA
Qi-Huo Wei, Southern University of Science and Technology, China
Jeong Jae (JJ) Wie, Hanyang University, South Korea
Shu Yang, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Zhongqiang Yang, Tsinghua University, China
Jie Yin, North Carolina State University, USA
Yue Zhao, Sherbrooke University, Canada