20 April 2026
After a lot of preparatory work, the 52nd German Liquid Crystal Conference has come and gone, seemingly in a flash: two and a half days of fascinating liquid crystal research in the form of interesting talks and posters in the unique environment of Campus Belval. We sincerely thank all of the attendees, sponsors, and people who submitted abstracts for making this conference possible. We welcomed 118 participants to Luxembourg, representing 19 countries and territories, underscoring the truly international scope of liquid crystal research.
We look forward to seeing some/many of you at the next German Liquid Crystal Conference in Essen in 2027! (Or other conferences, wherever they show up.)
/LWH/
P.S. A special congratulations goes to our group members Tanja Avsievich and Miriam Fischer (pictured) for winning one of the poster prizes!
20 April 2026
On 7 April, we in Luxembourg hosted the second ALCEMIST workshop! We welcomed our collaborators from the University of Cambridge and NOVA University of Lisbon as well as some of our other partners and collaborators (Apala Majumdar from the University of Manchester and Attila Dubecz from Helios Klinikum) to discuss the current state of the many prongs of the ALCEMIST project. Not only was it nice to bring the whole team together physically (including our newly joined ALCEMIST team members), but we also enjoyed glorious spring weather for the occasion.
/LWH/
09 March 2026
Congratulations to Zory and Jan on their latest publication, "Orientational ordering benefits nanorod sonication", which
went online today in Physical Review Materials! A work very long in the making, this is a systematic study of the interplay between sonication and ordering in suspensions of rods (in particular, the cellulose nanocrystals we use) and how phase transitions ultimately affect the behavior of the suspensions (even after returning to the "original" state).
The article is free to read (and download) online.
/LWH/
17 November 2025
In continuing with the ALCEMIST hirings and the launch of the project, it is our pleasure to welcome Dr. Tatiana Avsievich, a new postdoc on the ALCEMIST project!
Tatiana comes to us after doing her Ph.D. and taking on a postdoctoral position at the University of Oulu, Finland, where she worked on biological microfluidics and pushing the limits of 3D printing and soft lithography for biological applications. She will be bringing her expertise in microfluidics and soft matter instrumentation to us here at ESMP to work on studying the flow behavior and properties of cellulose-based liquid crystal elastomers.
/LWH/
03 November 2025
It is our pleasure to welcome our first ALCEMIST Ph.D. candidate (and first of several ALCEMIST hires), Miriam Fischer!
Originally from Germany and from the field of nanomagnetism, Miriam comes to us after finishing her Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Germany). She decided to take the plunge into soft matter physics and join us this year on the ALCEMIST project, working on transforming cellulose into liquid crystal elastomeric materials.
Häerzlech Wëllkomm, Miriam!
/LWH/
06 June 2025
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\
02 June 2025
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\
17 March 2025
It is our pleasure to welcome our latest ESMP group members, Dr. Chih-Chieh Chien and Dr. Vijaykumar (Vijay) Varma!
Originally from Taiwan, where she did her Ph.D., Chih-Chieh will be working on the BIOFLICS project to improve biological sensing with functionalized liquid crystal droplets. She will be taking over Yansong's role, as Yansong will be moving more towards working with Phil Dale's Laboratory for Energy Materials on the LETZCOLOR project.
After doing his Master's in India and his Ph.D. in Singapore, Vijay comes to us from a previous position at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. He's the first hire on the ALCEMIST project, in which he'll be working on the next generation of sustainable liquid crystal oligomers and elastomers derived from cellulose.
\LWH\
