We're excited to share that the tenth edition of the Bandol Summer School on Liquid Crystals will be happening 24–30 September in Bandol, France!

This is a small, intimate, interactive summer school in Bandol, a seaside town on the French Riviera, focusing on many aspects of liquid crystals, from optics and physics to the chemistry of liquid crystals. It is organized by Jan and a number of our collaborators (Giusy Scalia from the University of Luxembourg; Per Rudquist from Chalmers; Sven Lagerwall from the LC Lab Bandol; Johanna Bruckner, Frank Giesselmann, and Stefan Jagiella from the University of Stuttgart; and Daniel Krüerke from Klinikum Arlesheim), a group of researchers who are very passionate about liquid crystals. It's a small summer school, with limited space available, but a great opportunity for learning and enjoying the Côte d'Azur. Despite the timing, the end of September in the south of France can be very pleasant and mild.

For more details, please check the Summer School website. We hope to see some/many of you in Bandol!

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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