Travel Support for Young Faculty Members and Postdocs to attend the Symposium on "Stimuli-Responsive Polymers" at the ACS National Spring Meeting, April 6-10, 2008, New Orleans, LA

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INTELLECTUAL MERIT: The past two decades have seen a surging interest in theexploration and exploitation of stimulus-responsive polymers, i.e. macromolecularmaterials which, usually reversibly, change at least one of their key properties in responseto an external stimulus such as such as a change in temperature, pH, ionic strength,solvent, and irradiation with light or electric fields. The possibility to program them withdesired functions clearly distinguishes stimulus-responsive polymers from otheradvanced materials with 'traditional' functional characteristics. Demonstrated or targetedhigh-level functions such as perception, judgment, movement, and recognition, havetriggered the inaccurate but rather descriptive use of the term 'intelligent materials'. Thecombination of fundamental scientific curiosity on the one hand and the broadtechnological opportunities that promise to impact virtually all areas of life on the otherdefine the increasing interest in these materials. The goal of this symposium is to bringtogether established experts, scientists at the beginning of their careers, and students fromdifferent disciplines, to share most up-to-date and important research focused on thedesign, synthesis, processing and application of stimuli-responsive polymers. Four halfdayoral sessions with about 30 talks will concentrate on (1) MechanoresponsiveMaterials; (2) Responsive Polymers for Bio-Applications; (3) Polymers with UnusualSensing Capabilities; and (4) Polymers that Respond to Electromagnetic Radiation.BROADER IMPACT: All of the funds awarded from NSF will be used to facilitatesymposium attendance by faculty members that are at the beginning of their careers (andtheir students) and who might otherwise not be able to attend. Priority will be given toparticipants who would like to give oral presentations and from groups that areunderrepresented in STEM disciplines.