As many of us have already started heading off for the holidays far and near, we here at ESMP want to wish you a very Happy and relaxing holiday period and an equally Happy New Year!

This year was quite busy (four Ph.D. defenses, among other things), and next year looks to be differently busy, but in a good way. While we say farewell to some of our (long-time) group members, we welcomed some new ones, welcomed back some others, and got started on two big new projects (ALCEMIST and BriCE). While it's always hard to predict what the new year will bring, we're definitely excited to see what's ahead.

See you next year!

/LWH/

This past week, we had the pleasure of welcoming Prof. Chinedum Osuji from the University of Pennsylvania to Luxembourg for a colloquium! Not only did we get to hear about the fascinating active matter research happening in his group, but we were able to show him a bit of what we do here at ESMP as well as around Luxembourg.

By a happy coincidence, though, one of Prof. Osuji's recently graduated Ph.D. students, Yvonne Zagzag, will be officially joining ESMP in the New Year and was already in Luxembourg, so we had the chance to welcome them both! While Prof. Osuji has already left, we are definitely looking forward to working with Yvonne (more details to come).

/LWH/

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/

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/

It is our pleasure to announce that we here at ESMP, in cooperation with the Physics of Living Matter Group of Prof. Anupam Sengupta, will be hosting the 2026 edition of the German Liquid Crystal Conference! From 8 through 10 April 2026, we'll be welcoming liquid crystal researchers from Germany and across Europe to the Belval campus (Esch-sur-Alzette) for two and a half days of liquid crystal research of all flavors, from optics and novel materials (including ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals) to applications such as sensing, actuators, rubbers, and security.

More information to come on the official conference website (lcsoftmatter.com/glcc2026); we look forward to seeing you all in Belval next spring!

/LWH/