2024
October 2024
Society of Rheology Annual Meeting @ Austin, TX
Megan valentine was invited to give a keynote talk at the Society of Rheology’s 95th Annual Meeting. Her talk ‘Biotic-abiotic material interfaces offer new opportunities for force sensing and control’ highlighted a lot of our team’s recent work and was very well received. One audience member said they left ‘feeling excited and energized’. Go team!
August 2024
International Soft Matter Conference @ Raleigh, NC
July 2024
Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) Biennial PI Workshop @ Washington, DC
Maya Hendija and Rae Robertson-Anderson are featured in a Spectrum News article covering futuristic materials!
Check out the article on the Spectrum News website.
Congratulations to Rae Robertson-Anderson for being awarded the Pyramid Award from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation!
Congratulations to Katarina Matic who was awarded a prestigious Beckman Scholars Program Award!
Learn more about the program at the Beckman Scholars website.
June 2024
DMREF Hackathon @ UC Santa Barbara
March 2024
The 2nd Upstate NY Soft and Biological Matter Workshop
Jenny Ross co-organized this workshop at Syracuse University. For more details, visit this website!
APS March Meeting @ Minneapolis, MN
February 2024
Congratulations to Megan Valentine for being elected as a Member-at-Large of the Adhesion Society Executive Committee!
Congratulations to Qiaopeng Chen for being awarded the Heeger Fellowship!
For more details, see the Valentine website.
2023
November 2023
Congratulations to Rae Robertson-Anderson for being voted as the STEM Pioneer Woman of the Year by San Diego Magazine!
For more details, visit the San Diego Magazine website.
October 2023
Congratulations to Moumita Das for being named a 2023 APS Fellow!
Citation: For fundamental mechanistic insights into the collective properties and rigidity transitions in multi-component biological and bio-inspired soft materials, and for contributions to building an inclusive and diverse soft matter community.
Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks Symposium
The symposium returned with Rae Robertson-Anderson as co-chair. Professor Kerstin Nordstrom of Mount Holyoke College delivered a fascinating keynote address on jamming and clogging of granular materials. A full conference program can be found here.
July 2023
Summer Training @ University of San Diego
June 2023
DMREF Hackathon @ UC Santa Barbara
Hosted by the Valentine Lab!
May 2023
Congratulations to Maya Hendija for being awarded an SPS Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research!
This award from the Society of Physics Students recognizes students based on exceptional research achievement. For additional details, see the SPS website.
April 2023
The USD Vista wrote a feature story on Maya Nugent’s and Rae Robertson-Anderson’s outstanding achievements recognized at APS March Meeting!
Read the feature here!
March 2023
Congratulations to Maya Hendija and Rae Robertson-Anderson for being awarded a 2023 Cottrell Postbac Award!
This award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) supports the work of an undergraduate senior working under the supervision of a Cottrell Scholar for a year after graduation. Rae and Maya are one of seven scholar-trainee pairs that received this award this year. For more details, see the RCSA website.
Congratulations to Maya Nugent for being awarded an APS Division of Soft Matter Poster Award!
Maya received this award for the poster that she presented at APS March Meeting. She is one of only 4 award recipients (out of over 100 posters) and the only undergraduate.
APS March Meeting @ Las Vegas, NV
Rae Robertson-Anderson, the recipient of the 2023 APS Prize for a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution, gave a talk: “The Whole is More than the Sum of its Parts”. Read the abstract here.
Several of our trainees also gave talks: Yongkui Tang, Maya Hendija, Gregor Leech, Karthik Peddireddy, Mehrzad Sasanpour, Lauren Melcher, and Jonathan Michel. Our faculty collaborator, Janet Sheung (Scripps University), gave two talks. Great work, everyone!
Moumita Das co-chaired the sessions on Mechanics of Cells and Tissues I and IV. Rae Robertson-Anderson chaired the sessions on DNA-based Soft Matter: Design Dynamics, and Active Mechanics; Emerging Trends in Soft Microscale Mechanics I; and the DSOFT Early Career and Student Awards Session. Megan Valentine chaired the session on Emerging Trends in Soft Microscale Mechanics II.
February 2023
Congratulations to Yongkui Tang for being awarded a Heeger Fellowship!
This award will support his upcoming travel to the APS March Meeting in Las Vegas, where he will present results of his hydrogen design and mechanics work. For more details, see the Valentine lab website.
January 2023
Congratulations to Jenny Ross for being named a 2022 AAAS Fellow!
This honor was presented by the Physics section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “for [Dr. Ross’s] distinguished contributions to biophysics, particularly for experimentally elucidating regulatory mechanisms in intracellular transport.” Read the press release from Syracuse.
NASEM Biohybrid Materials and Technologies for Today and Tomorrow: A Workshop
Megan Valentine leads this workshop as Chair of the Program Committee. Find more details and watch a recording of the workshop on the NASEM website.
Congratulations to Rae Robertson-Anderson for receiving the 2022-23 Glenn D. White, Jr. ‘78 Faculty Research Award!
This award recognizes research mentors that bring respect and excellence to the practice of mentoring undergraduates in research and scholarly activities. For more details, visit the USD OURMA webpage.
2022
October 2022
Congratulations to Rae Robertson-Anderson for receiving the 2023 APS Prize for Research in an Undergraduate Institution!
This award honors a physicist whose research in an undergraduate setting has achieved wide recognition and contributed significantly to physics and who has contributed substantially to the professional development of undergraduate physics students.
September 2022
Frontiers in Soft Matter and Macromolecular Networks Symposium
Rae Robertson-Anderson is the co-Chair of this annual symposium, held at USD. For more information, see the event page from the USD News Center.
Congratulations to Rae Robertson-Anderson for being named a 2022 APS Fellow!
Citation: For pioneering microrheology and microscopy experiments that elucidate the mechanics and dynamics of bio-inspired soft matter systems and complex biopolymer networks, and advancing undergraduate physics research and curriculum.
July 2022
DMREF-BioPACIFIC Hackathon @ UC Santa Barbara
May 2022
Congratulations to Daisy Achiloraie for being awarded a Barry Goldwater Scholarship!
See this press release from Scripps College.
2021
October 2021
Our team is awarded a $1.8 million grant from the NSF!
Read press releases from the USD News Center and the UCSB Current.