Conference: 2024 Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar on Multifunctional Materials and Structures; Ventura, California; January 27-February 2, 2024

This award will support the 2024 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Multifunctional Materials and Structures on the theme of Discovery of Reconfigurable, Hybrid and Sustainable Materials and the accompanying Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on the theme of Morphology and Hierarchy in Multifunctional Materials Design. The GRC will be held in Ventura, California, on January 28 – February 2, 2024, preceded by the inaugural GRS that will take place at the same location on January 27 – 28, 2024. The GRC on Multifunctional Materials and Structures is a leading technical forum on the latest developments in the field, bringing together a diverse group of researchers to discuss recent advances and unpublished research, spawn new ideas, and foster productive interdisciplinary collaborations. The inaugural GRS will be organized and attended exclusively by graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and junior researchers. Funding through this award will increase the number of graduate student and post-doctoral scholar participants to prepare the next generation of scientific leaders in this field. The potential societal benefits and impact of multifunctionality include materials sustainability and energy resource management through lifetime extensions of engineered components that are enabled by new multifunctional response, embedded end-of-life functionalities, safer systems through adaptive and self-awareness capabilities and improved energy efficiency. The conference outcomes are expected to include novel concepts and mechanisms for achieving hybrid multifunctional materials not possible before, as well as new collaborations and ways of collaborating across disciplines.This conference and the adjacent seminar seek to address fundamental scientific issues associated with (a) material and structural multifunctionality, shape reconfigurability and adaptivity, (b) discovery and synthesis of hybrid multifunctional materials through theory and recent developments in machine learning and data sciences, (c) computable and irregular materials and materials far from equilibrium, (d) living engineering material systems and active matter, and (e) hybrid, solid-liquid multifunctional materials and material regeneration and sustainability. The conference will present key scientific issues and bottlenecks in making major advances in these innovative research areas, with prospective impacts to a broad range of applications. Researchers from a vibrant international community of scientists and engineers, and a wide range of disciplines encompassing physics, mechanics, materials science, engineering science, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and computational science and engineering, will address the issues associated with envisioning, designing, and creating synthetic multifunctional materials and structures. They will identify gaps and present potential solutions on the integration of novel functionalities into engineering material systems and structures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

This award will support the 2024 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Multifunctional Materials and Structures on the theme of Discovery of Reconfigurable, Hybrid and Sustainable Materials and the accompanying Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on the theme of Morphology and Hierarchy in Multifunctional Materials Design. The GRC will be held in Ventura, California, on January 28 – February 2, 2024, preceded by the inaugural GRS that will take place at the same location on January 27 – 28, 2024. The GRC on Multifunctional Materials and Structures is a leading technical forum on the latest developments in the field, bringing together a diverse group of researchers to discuss recent advances and unpublished research, spawn new ideas, and foster productive interdisciplinary collaborations. The inaugural GRS will be organized and attended exclusively by graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and junior researchers. Funding through this award will increase the number of graduate student and post-doctoral scholar participants to prepare the next generation of scientific leaders in this field. The potential societal benefits and impact of multifunctionality include materials sustainability and energy resource management through lifetime extensions of engineered components that are enabled by new multifunctional response, embedded end-of-life functionalities, safer systems through adaptive and self-awareness capabilities and improved energy efficiency. The conference outcomes are expected to include novel concepts and mechanisms for achieving hybrid multifunctional materials not possible before, as well as new collaborations and ways of collaborating across disciplines.This conference and the adjacent seminar seek to address fundamental scientific issues associated with (a) material and structural multifunctionality, shape reconfigurability and adaptivity, (b) discovery and synthesis of hybrid multifunctional materials through theory and recent developments in machine learning and data sciences, (c) computable and irregular materials and materials far from equilibrium, (d) living engineering material systems and active matter, and (e) hybrid, solid-liquid multifunctional materials and material regeneration and sustainability. The conference will present key scientific issues and bottlenecks in making major advances in these innovative research areas, with prospective impacts to a broad range of applications. Researchers from a vibrant international community of scientists and engineers, and a wide range of disciplines encompassing physics, mechanics, materials science, engineering science, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and computational science and engineering, will address the issues associated with envisioning, designing, and creating synthetic multifunctional materials and structures. They will identify gaps and present potential solutions on the integration of novel functionalities into engineering material systems and structures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.