Gordon Research Conference on Multifunctional Materials and Structures; Ventura, California; January 31-February 5, 2016

戈登研究会议为展示和讨论生物、化学和物理科学及其相关技术的前沿研究提供了一个国际论坛。80多年来，戈登研究会议组织的高质量和高成本效益的会议已被公认为世界上首屈一指的科学会议，来自世界各地的主要研究人员以独特的非正式互动形式讨论他们的最新工作和未来的挑战。这些论坛对于探索新的科学前沿以及培训和支持处于职业生涯早期的年轻科学家和工程师（包括研究生）尤其重要。该奖项部分支持将于2016年初举行的关于多功能材料和结构新兴领域的新戈登会议。多功能材料和结构具有通过结构特性和至少一种附加功能（如热管理、形状变形、能量收集等）的合理组合来执行多种功能的能力。本次会议旨在解决在该领域具有广泛应用的基础科学问题，包括：将模型生物学功能转化为合成材料，加速强、硬材料的传输或动态化学变化，优化硬、软材料之间的界面，多组分系统的多物理场建模等。多功能材料和结构的潜在应用包括有远见的进步，如(a)“自主”结构，可以在最小的外部干预下感知、诊断和响应外部刺激，(b)“自适应”结构，允许根据需要重新配置或重新调整功能、形状和机械性能，以及(c)具有结构集成电力收集/存储/传输能力的“自我维持”系统。

The Gordon Research Conferences provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies. For over 80 years, high-quality and cost-effective meetings organized by Gordon Research Conferences have been recognized as the world's premier scientific conferences, where leading investigators from around the globe discuss their latest work and future challenges in a uniquely informal, interactive format. These forums are especially important for exploring new scientific frontiers and for training and supporting young scientists and engineers (including graduate students) in their early careers. This award partially supports a new Gordon Conference on the emerging field of multifunctional materials and structures to be held in early 2016.Multifunctional materials and structures have the ability to perform multiple functions through a judicious combination of structural properties and at least one additional function such as thermal management, shape morphing, energy harvesting, etc. This conference seeks to address fundamental scientific issues that have broad application in the field including: translation of model biological functions to synthetic materials, accelerating transport or dynamic chemical changes in strong, stiff materials, optimizing interfaces between hard and soft materials, multi-physics modeling of multi-component systems, etc. The potential applications of multifunctional materials and structures includes visionary advancements such as (a) "autonomic" structures that can sense, diagnose and respond to external stimuli with minimal external intervention, (b) "adaptive" structures allowing reconfiguration or readjustment of functionality, shape and mechanical properties on demand, and (c) "self-sustaining" systems with structurally integrated power harvest/storage/transmission capabilities.