Jacinta Conrad

Are you ready for the APS Global Physics Summit? For all you soft matter lovers, we’ve gathered a list of the DSOFT invited sessions below. For the full GPS schedule, see summit.aps.org/schedule/

Excellent Department of Energy funding opportunity for people in EPSCoR states: science.osti.gov/-/media/gran...

Up to $1 million over 4 years 👏🏽

🧪🔭⚛️

We are excited to present the finalists for this year's DSOFT Emerging Soft Matter Excellence Award! Join us in celebrating the work of these exceptional soft matter physics students, who will present their work in a special DSOFT Awards Session at the 2026 APS Global Physics Summit.

Indoctrination isn’t happening at UT, despite what regents say UT professor argues claims of widespread campus indoctrination are unfounded, citing research showing students feel free to think independently.

An op ed next to mine claimed indoctrination is happening. The problem with that? The author had little evidence, only one weak study that said it “looks like” students are being indoctrinated.

Believe the EVIDENCE. Indoctrination is not a problem for higher ed and no excuse for censorship.

Delighted this paper is out! Soft solids fracture in complex ways. Can we control it using structure and activity? Yes, using defects that localize energy injection for targeted failure! Amazing work combining exp, theory & ML by Sheng Chen and collab with Murrell lab (Yale).

Pivoting colloidal assemblies exhibit mechanical metamaterial behaviour Nature - A method is described for the manufacture of pivoting colloidal assemblies comprising rotating diamond and rotating triangle geometries that show tunable folding and unfolding by thermal...

I am very excited that our latest work is now out in @nature.com: Brownian mechanical metamaterials! Great work by Julio Melio, in collaboration with Martin van Hecke and Silke Henkes: rdcu.be/e5H86!

Excited to share our new preprint exploring how Paramecium achieves diverse flow functions, i.e. feeding and swimming, simultaneously. This work was spearheaded by our ExM expert, PhD student Daphne Laan @daphnelaan.bsky.social :
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Rigidity (or not) on the Earth's surface and beyond | Karen Daniels (NC State) The purpose of these Blackboard Talk lunches is for the science of one program to be explained to the other KITP program participants. These talks lead to cross program communications that work…

Watch the latest #KITP Blackboard Lunch talk by Karen Daniels (NC State) —
Rigidity (or not) on the Earth's surface and beyond

The next Future of #Rheology seminar Thurs, 2/26 1-2:00 EST, explores #colloidal #suspensions.
•A Aminimajd: Graph Neural Network for Multitask Prediction of Rheology and Micro Behavior in Suspensions
•G Legrand: LAOStrain Response of Colloid-polymer Hydrogels: Rheo-USAXS and Rheo-electric Expts

So how much money is an average science lab getting back because of the stupid and illegal tariffs on everything from pipette tips to instruments?
Asking for several thousands of colleagues...

Great to see our paper on light-intensity dependent swimming patterns in #Chlamydomonas out now in Phys Rev Lett. as an Editors' suggestion! With a nice commentary by @philipcball.bsky.social.

Chlamy actively modulate the beat planes of their #cilia!
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract... #protistsonsky

Our new paper, led by @ramsudhirsharma.bsky.social (with Alexandre Leonelli, Kevin Zhao, Eckart Meiburg), has been published in @apsphysics.bsky.social PRL. We revisit hourglasses/silos and ask what really sets the discharge rate. See more here: doi.org/10.1103/3g2f-nslz

UH Proposed Teaching Review Risks Censorship Social: X @TexasAaup and Bluesky @texasaaup.bsky.social

🚨 AAUP has received reports that, in at least one UH college, a dean has already implemented a course review process “to ensure alignment with SB37” and “academic integrity” and has directed faculty to remove or modify syllabi content on race, LGBTQ+ and other issues.

aaup-texas.org/blog/f/uh-pr...

I wish university presses would try to get some physics textbooks by women published

Too much push for memoir, not enough push for “write about the thing you do”

Many condensates can be described as active soft materials that generate molecular fluxes. Here we develop a new #nonequilibrium approach (TRACE) to study molecular transport through condensates! Work led by Yashraj Wani!!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

“Targeting regional universities and community colleges reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of tenure—as if it were a privilege reserved for a select few rather than an essential working condition for all faculty responsible for teaching and research.”

@uoklahomaaaup.bsky.social

BOSTON!!! TONIGHT!!! See me and @berondam.bsky.social in conversation about her amazing book:

www.harvard.com/event/berond...

I’ve been thumping the table about this for years. Now it’s accelerating. I wish I could get my private college colleagues to realize that if it’s not stopped, it’s coming for us, too. “But we’re private!” Sure, ask Orban or Erdogan what an autocrat does with private higher ed.

a picture of a person in the water with the words call of the deep below it ALT: a picture of a person in the water with the words call of the deep below it

More on NSF funding data

A deeper dive into the numbers of awards by Directorate.

1/9

Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich

Racism is like sepsis. Kills you from the inside.

I feel for all my colleagues and former students, many of whom immigrants or second generation, who will suffer irreparably.

Gov. Abbott’s H-1B Freeze Endangers Texas’s Future A Union of Professionals

Read the full press release: www.texasaft.org/releases/gov...

@aaup.org @texasaaup.bsky.social

Published online today in Nature Physics - we show how multicellular spheroids round up and orbit, driving a deterministic transition to 3D matrix invasion at predictable locations.

Amazing work from @jiwon-kim.bsky.social, @htjeong.bsky.social and collaborators

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy to have some moral clarity at the head of my union these days.

Join AAUP. Your dues pay for these legal victories we keep wrapping up and these trainings that have taught a thousand new organizers how to do the work.

Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.

More ways to help: Stand With Minnesota. How you can tell this is a local MN thing: “We are now just two ladies running this thing as volunteers, so please be patient.” [standwithminnesota.com]

The Edge of Space-Time by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: 9780593701683 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books A fresh, charming, socially conscious tour of the mysteries of space-time, from the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos In her highly acclaimed debut, distinguished cosmologist and particle...

My spouse just counted up my book tour stops and apparently I'm going to 15 cities for 18 events 😭

Please buy my book because I need this to be worth it lol
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...

Tunable Nanoscale Structure via Divalent Ion Identity in Charged-Neutral Polymer Blends Charged-neutral polymer blends, wherein an ion-containing polymer is blended with a neutral polymer, are potential candidates for battery electrolytes due to their improved ion transport properties and electrochemical stability. Though electrostatic interactions in charged polymer blends can theoretically stabilize ordered nanostructures analogous to those observed in neutral block copolymers, direct experimental evidence remains limited. Here, we investigate the effects of divalent cation identity on the nanoscale morphology of charged-neutral polymer blends composed of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and Mg2+ or Ca2+ ion-containing polymers, poly[3-(methylacryloxy)propylsulfonyl-1-(trifluoromethanesulfonylimide)] (P(Mg(MTFSI)2) or P(Ca(MTFSI)2). By tuning the size of the divalent counterion, we are able to precisely tune the ion solvation between the free cation and PEO, which acts as a solvent in this system. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements reveal that Mg2+ and Ca2+ ions induce distinct structural behavior. In both systems, the blends become more miscible as the concentration of ion-containing polymer is increased indicated by increased suppression of PEO crystallinity. At the highest concentrations of P(Mg(MTFSI)2), the blends undergo microphase separation and generate nanostructures with short-ranged ordering. In contrast, calcium ions, which are more readily solvated by PEO, produce more homogeneous blends characterized by a single glass-transition temperature and featureless SAXS data. The results demonstrate the novel experimental confirmation that charged-neutral polymer blends can undergo microphase separation and show that counterion identity can be exploited as a design parameter to control nanoscale morphology.

Our latest publication is out now! Led by Jenny, we study charged-neutral polymer blends and show that divalent ion identity strongly influences the nanostructure. we even report microphase separation at lengthscales typically observed in block copolymers!

Read it here: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

NSF seeks public input on its Fiscal Year (FY) 2026–2030 NSF Strategic Plan

🧪⚛️ NSF is seeking community feedback on their draft strategic plan for the next few years. Now is the time to make your views known. (Maybe disbanding nearly all advisory committees wasn’t the best idea.) www.nsf.gov/od/updates/n...

Meanwhile those of us still employed in US higher education have to do required trainings about how collaborating with scientists from China is bad.

Were your Texas college courses changed this semester? Amid new policies restricting instruction on race, gender and sexuality, The Texas Tribune seeks examples of college course changes from students and instructors.

Were your Texas college courses reviewed or changed this semester?

Amid new policies restricting instruction on race, gender and sexuality, The Texas Tribune seeks examples of college course changes from students and instructors.