About Us

Our goal is to encourage collaboration among researchers from industry and academe in the New England area studying Soft Condensed Matter. We hold one day workshops four times a year which offer the opportunity for discussion and exchange of ideas between students, post-docs, and professionals. An additional objective of our meetings is to help the career development of students and post-docs by introducing them to the local academic and industrial research community.

The location of the workshop rotates among the member institutions. Our first meeting was in December 1999 and meetings have been held at Boston University, Brandeis University, Brown University, Clark University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Schlumberger-Doll Research Center, Tufts University, University of Connecticut, the Universities of Massachusetts at Amherst and Boston, University of Rhode Island, and Yale University.

Workshops typically consist of four longer invited talks, each about 30 minutes long, but with 45 minutes allotted per speaker to allow for lots of discussion. In addition, everyone who attends is encouraged to give a three to four minute update (soundbite) of their current work. Equally important is ample time scheduled for coffee and lunch breaks for informal discussion.

The Fall meeting is held mid-September at Brandeis, and the Winter meeting early-December at Harvard. The Spring and Summer meetings occur in March and June, and rotate among the member institutions. To host a meeting contact the workshop organizers.

Prior NECF workshops