March Meeting 2020: Call for Session and Short-course Proposals

Dear GSOFT Member,

The GSOFT program committee requests, by June 10, 2019, your proposals for Focus and Invited sessions, as well as Short Courses for the March Meeting 2020. Focus sessions promote topics of particular interest to the soft matter community, and consist of 1-2 invited talks and up to 12 contributed talks. Invited sessions consist of five invited talks. Short Courses are typically half-to-full day “pre-meeting” activities with leaders in the field that share fundamentals that underline the state-of-the-art research.

We are committed to presenting a program that highlights the full scientific scope and the diversity of the GSOFT membership, and we request your engagement in this process. Your submissions will help ensure the best possible and most timely scientific program. We particularly encourage submissions from junior scientists, including graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty.

Instructions

To submit a Focus or Invited session please send an email to gsoftprogram2020@gmail.com with the subject line “2020 Session Proposal” and the following information as plain text in the email body.

1. The name and contact details (institution, email, and phone #) of all proposers of the session.

2. Type (Focus OR Invited) and Title of your session. A specific and descriptive title is valuable, particularly for Focus sessions. Successful Focus sessions will (later in the year) be populated with contributed talks, and those submitting talk abstracts will have the best idea of where to direct their submissions if your session title is as clear and specific as possible.

3. Justification for your session, including a statement of why you think it will be popular with the membership of GSOFT and related units (e.g. DBIO, DPOLY, GSNP). We welcome an estimate of likely attendance, where possible. You may wish to review the 2019 sessions organized by these units (search by “sponsor”) and review 2019 submission statistics.

4. Names and contact details (institution, email and phone #) of the speakers you would like to invite to speak in your session. For Focus sessions select 1 or 2 invited speakers; for Invited sessions select 5 invited speakers. Preference will be given to proposals whose invited speakers have indicated a willingness to speak, should the session be selected; please contact your proposed speakers and indicate this information in your application. APS March Meeting invited talks last 36 minutes, including 6 minutes of questions. Focus sessions, once approved, will be populated with contributed talks later in the year (you do not need to suggest contributed talks at time of submission). Please note that APS rules say that people who gave an invited talk at the March Meeting 2019 in Boston are not eligible to be invited speakers in 2020 (the only exception to this rule is made for award winners or non-technical invited talks, such as education and policy talks). View a list of previous invitees. APS does not provide funding to cover speaker costs.

5. Name and contact details (institution, email and phone #) of a proposed chair for your session. Preference will be given to proposals whose session chairs have indicated a willingness to serve, should the session be selected.

To propose a Short Course please send an email to gsoftprogram2020@gmail.com with the subject line “2020 Short Course Proposal” and the following information as plain text in the email body.

1. The name and contact details (institution, email, and phone #) of all proposers of the session.

2. A title and a one-paragraph description of the Short Course describing its content, timeliness, and relevance.

3. Names and contact information for proposed Short Course speakers including name, affiliation, phone number, and email.

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

The GSOFT program committee — John Crocker (jcrocker@seas.upenn.edu), Katia Bertoldi (bertoldi@seas.harvard.edu), Christian Santangelo (csantang@physics.umass.edu), Zvonimir Dogic (zdogic@physics.ucsb.edu), Gregory Grason (grason@mail.pse.umass.edu), Pedro Reis (pedro.reis@epfl.ch), Eleni Katifori (katifori@sas.upenn.edu), Frederick MacKintosh (fcmack@rice.edu), and Kimberly Weirich (kweirich@uchicago.edu) — welcome your comments and feedback at any stage of the process.

Best Regards,

John Crocker
GSOFT March Meeting 2020 Program Chair