Scientific Program 2014

The I-CAMP school will take the form of a summit, bringing together prominent scientists as well as students and postdoctoral fellows. The meeting will explore current state and emerging new frontiers at the interface of materials science, nanoscience, and optics/photonics, whereas the Outreach Forum held in conjunction with it will allow the researchers to share their experience and advances in conducting outreach and disseminating scientific knowledge. Summer school organization will adhere to the Fraunfelder rules; we will assure that there will be enough time for discussion, and the speakers will be specifically asked to emphasize the open/emerging questions and unsolved problems. The focus will be on recent advances at the interface between materials physics and optics that promise to open up conceptually novel directions of research. The I-CAMP will enable researchers working at the forefronts of materials science, nanoscience, and optics to discuss the emerging uses of light for control and study of materials as well as the advances in the use of materials to control light. Being at the nexus of materials science, soft condensed matter physics, chemistry, optics, and photonics, the workshop theme is inherently interdisciplinary.

There will be several poster sessions. Poster boards 3.5 ft (width) x 3 ft (height) in size will be provided.

List of Speakers

• Jean-François Allemand, École Normale Supérieure, France
• Mark Bowick, Syracuse University, United States
• Greg Grason, University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States
• William Irvine, University of Chicago, United States
• Tjaart Krüger, University of Pretoria, South Africa
• M. Cristina Marchetti, Syracuse University, United States
• Kristian Müller-Nedebock, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
• Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop, The University of Queensland, Australia
• Stefano Sacanna, New York University, United States
• Jonathan Selinger, Kent State University, United States
• Robin Selinger, Kent State University, United States
• Ivan Smalyukh, University of Colorado at Boulder, United States
• Uroš Tkalec, Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia

Summer School List of Topics

• Knotted fields
• Topology in biology
• Interplay of topologies of surfaces and fields
• Topological colloids
• Topology and geometry in optics
• Liquid crystal defects
• Optical vortices
• DNA and knots
• Experimental low-dimensional topology
• Soft matter topological model systems
• Interplay of defects in matter and light
• Defects in “living liquid crystals”
• Active colloids and topology
• Defects and self-assembly
• Topology and topography in elastomeric films
• Hopf fibration defects and chirality
• Geometry in soft matter