Engaging the Public:From Cartilage Mechanics to Living Materials — Connecting Physics of Materials to Human Health

2/12/2026 | Moumita Das (RIT)

Bringing foundational science to the public: At RIT’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute—a program for adult learners aged 50+—I gave a public lecture as part of the Pfaudler Series, sharing how physics and biomaterials modeling explain the resilience of soft tissues like cartilage, and provide design principles for regenerative medicine and soft robotics. The talk drew over 60 participants in person and online and featured a lively, extended Q&A.

Materials to Manufacturing Ideation Workshop

2/12/2026

Ideation and innovation workshop goals include engaging students in proper design and ideation, seeding innovative research collaborations, supporting training and research exchanges between DMREF and NSF Future Manufacturing team, and training in proposal writing and project management.

Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks

2/12/2026 | Rae Robertson-Anderson (University of San Diego)

We hosted the 8th 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.

Frontiers ll Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks

2/12/2026

We hosted our annual DMREF team workshop at the University of San Diego, immediately following the Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks symposium in which our trainees presented posters and networked with rising stars and established faculty in Soft Materials research.

Hactive Matter: Data-driven Discovery through Hackathon-based Cross-disciplinary Coding

2/12/2026 | Rae Robertson-Anderson (University of San Diego) Megan T. Valentine (UC Santa Barbara)

The past decade has seen unprecedented growth in active matter and autonomous biomaterials research. Yet, inconsistent metrics, definitions, and analysis algorithms across research groups, as well as the high-dimensionality of data streams, has hindered identification of performance intersections among such dynamic systems. To address this challenge, we have developed a hackathon platform, as part of our DMREF project and supported by an MGI Supplement.

Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks

2/12/2026 | Rae Robertson-Anderson, University of San Diego

We hosted Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks – a day-long symposium with 101 participants and a weekend DMREF workshop–at University of San Diego. The event, disseminated via a website that the PI maintains www.sdsoftmatter.com, brought together our DMREF team and faculty, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduates and high school students from across the country. We hosted industry reps who helped sponsor the event, building bridges between academia and industry and providing networking opportunities for students and future employers. The symposium featured two keynotes and 10 lightning junior faculty talks. The poster session featured 50 posters from non-faculty participants.

DMREF at 2025 APS Meeting

2/12/2026 | Rae Robertson-Anderson, University of San Diego

Members of our collaboration attended the 2025 American Physical Society Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, CA and presented 3 invited talks and 8 contributed talks on our DMREF project research. 

Origami at Taiwan Art Museum

1/27/2026 | Itai Cohen (Cornell U.)

Cohen’s work on origami was on display at the Chi Mei Museum of art in Taiwan. Over 130,000 visitors viewed this work. In addition he gave a talk about the work we are conducting on cell sized machines to a public audience. This talk was recorded and can be found at the link below.

2024 DMREF Training Workshop

12/1/2025 | Kenan Gundogdu (NC State University)

2025 HybriD3 Materials Theory Training Workshop

12/1/2025 | Volker Blum (Duke), Yosuke Kanai (UNC-CH)