We hosted the 8^th annual Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks – a day-long symposium aimed at highlighting frontier areas of soft materials research and cultivating cross-pollination of ideas and collaborative projects across institutions. The symposium featured keynotes given by Omar Saleh (UC Santa Barbara) and Eva Kanso (USC), 9 highlight talks by junior faculty, and a poster session that featured 50 posters from trainee participants.

This year’s event, described on the dedicated website the PI maintains www.sdsoftmatter.com, hosted 90 participants including our DMREF team as well as faculty, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduates and high school students from across the country. We also hosted industry reps who helped sponsor the event, building bridges between academia and industry and providing networking opportunities for students and future employers.

The continued hosting of this event has led to the PI’s successful bid to host the 2027 International Soft Matter Conference at University of San Diego (see www.ismc2027.org).