Last week, Jan, Tadej, and Alejandro all presented at the "Isaac Newton Institute Workshop on the Mathematics, Mechanics, and Applications of Soft Matter", hosted by Prof. Apala Majumdar and Dr. Prabakaran Rajamanickam, at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. This was a small workshop on many aspects of liquid crystals and soft matter in general: Jan presented some based on our work on liquid crystal elastomers, while Alejandro presented on direct programming of the director in LCE sheets and Tadej presented on acoustic activation of nematic tactoids.
\LWH\
Jan and Larry attended this year's European Liquid Crystal Conference in Prague, hosted by the Czech Academy of Sciences! Jan presented on some of Najiya's and Nikolay's work related to artificial vasculature with liquid crystal elastomer tubes (recently published), while Larry presented on some of his previous work. We also got the chance to explore and enjoy Prague, the place where liquid crystals were first discovered by Friedrich Reinitzer.
\LWH\
It is our pleasure to welcome back Rijeesh Kizhakidathazhath (approx. "kee-rah-kee-dah-tah-ra-tuh") to the ESMP group!
Originally from Kerala, India, Rijeesh did his Ph.D. in Life Science at Hokkaido University in Japan before moving to Kyushu University for a postdoc. He first came to ESMP in 2018, stayed with us for five years, then moved to the group of Arri Priimägi at Tampere University in Finland. He has since returned to Luxembourg to work on many of our chemistry-heavy projects, such as BriCE, ALCEMIST, and COSAMOS, with a focus on polymerizable liquid crystals for sensing and detection purposes.
Rebienvenue, Rijeesh!
\LWH\
Congrats to Najiya and Jan for their recent publication, "
Oligomer-Derived Photoresponsive Liquid Crystal Elastomers with Biocompatible Operating Temperature", in
Advanced Optical Materials! In this work, they demonstrate liquid crystal elastomers capable of responding to light at temperatures close to body temperature, a step towards the aim of the ECLECTIC project of producing liquid crystal elastomer actuators for artificial vasculature. Accepted just in time for Najiya's recent PhD defense, it's now finally online for all to see.
\LWH\
This March, we (Jan and Larry) got the chance to participate for the first time in the 2025
Science Is Wonderful fair hosted by the European Commission at the Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika (Royal Museum for Central Africa) in Tervuren, Belgium! It was a great opportunity to show students of all ages the beauty of structural color, liquid crystals, and a taste of the research we do in our group.
As tired as we are after the event, it was definitely rewarding and exciting, and we're looking forward to the next edition.
\LWH\
