stephen j. decamp
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​Boston Soft
​Matter Socials

We are a group of graduate students and postdocs interested in soft matter research from universities throughout the Greater Boston Area. We hangout on the first Thursday of each month in order to connect with fellow soft matter researchers and build a stronger soft matter community. We encourage those active in soft matter research to come to a meet-up and have a beer with us at a local bar. Everyone is welcome!

​The Greater Boston Area is home to many world class universities and research institutes and many leading scientists and researchers. Boston is also home to a variety of scientific organizations which host conferences, workshops, and socials aimed at everything from astrophysics to biology. However, we feel there is a significant base of graduate students and postdocs in the soft matter field which remain fragmented between many of the current organizations. In order to promote a stronger research community, we are organizing a monthly informal meet-up in which anyone is welcome to join, network, and socialize with other researchers in the field of soft matter.

Social Organizers

Stephen DeCamp
Guillaume Duclos
Peter Foster​
Hannah Yevick
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For questions, Contact Us at:

​bostonsoftmatter@gmail.com

ASCB Biological Soft Matter Conference

For Early Career Scientists
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​We are excited to announce that Boston Soft Matter Meetups is organizing our first annual Biological Soft Matter Meeting. This one-day conference will bring together students and postdocs from many universities in the Boston area who are interested in research which combines physics and biology.
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Conference Description:
The Biological Soft Matter meeting is the first annual one-day meeting which has grown out of the monthly Boston Soft Matter Socials. The informal socials are frequented by PhD students and postdocs with diverse research interests in physics and biology and provides an opportunity for students to connect with researchers from many local universities. Our socials have highlighted a need for a broader biophysics community among early careers researchers in the Boston area. Our meeting is therefore directed to formally bring together early-career researchers working at the intersection of physics and biology. The conference will provide an opportunity for students and postdocs to present their research, exchange ideas between the two disciplines, identify new areas of collaboration, and promote community building at the early-career level. The program will include 12 minute talks from students and postdocs, an early career scientist panel, and will end with our regular monthly Boston Soft Matter Social.
Meeting Goals:​
  • Provide early career scientists, graduate students, and postdocs an opportunity to present their research.
  • ​Identify new areas of collaboration among early career scientists.
  • Exchange ideas between researchers in soft matter physics and biology.
  • Promote community building at the early career level.
Talks:
We will be selecting students and postdocs to give 12 minute talks (plus 3 min for questions).
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General Speaker Guidelines:
We would like to remind all of our speakers that this conference will be attended by researchers from many diverse backgrounds ranging from physics and mathematics to cell and molecular biology. We ask that all speakers gear their talks to be accessible to this wide audience.

Meeting Details

Meeting Date: ​
Friday, November 17th, 2017
​9:50am - 4:30pm
Meeting Location: 
Pappalardo Room
MIT Building 4-349
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139

Meeting Program​ & Speaker Schedule

9:50 - 10:00 am:
Welcome from the Boston Soft Matter organizers

Introduction and opening remarks.
Funding and assistance from The ASCB and MIT Physics of Living System.

10:00 - 11 am:
Morning Session #1  (12 min talks + 3 min questions)

 
10:00 am
José Alvarado - MIT
Nonlinear flow response of soft hair beds
 
10:15 am
Delora Gaskins - Brandeis
Emergent Patterns in a reverse microemulsion system: BZ AOT Turing-Hopf Rings and shells
 
10:30 am
Daniel Beller - Brown
Population genetics in range expansions: Ancestral lineages as (super)diffusive coalescing random walkers
 
10:45 am
Hanieh Falahati - Yale
In Vivo Assessment of Thermodynamic Phase Transitions
 
11 - 11:15 am: Coffee Break
 
11:15 am - 12:15 pm:
Morning Session #2  (12 min talks + 3 min questions)

 
11:15 am
Anna Wang - Massachusetts General Hospital
Self-assembly of model protocell membranes

11:30 am
Arash Manafirad -U Mass Amherst
Micromanipulation Studies of Stimuli-Responsive Giant Unilamellar Vesicles
 
11:45 am
Amit Das - Northeastern
Phase segregation in the Active Composite Cell Surface
 
 12:00 pm (noon)
Joanna Robaszewski - Brandeis
Assembling vesicles with filamentous viruses
 
12:15 - 1:15 pm: Lunch

1:15 - 2:15 pm:
Afternoon Session #1  (12 min talks + 3 min questions)

 
1:15 pm
Melis Tekant - MIT
Cytoskeletal dynamics and pattern formation in starfish oocytes
 
1:30 pm
Yi Fan - Brown
Three-dimensional flow structure in a kinesin-driven active gel
 
1:45 pm
Arthur Michaut - Harvard Medical School
Biomechanics of the anteroposterior axis elongation in the chicken embryo
 
2:00 pm
Vikash Verma - U Mass Amherst
Microtubule tips act as signaling hubs for positioning the cleavage furrow
 
2:15 - 2:30 pm: 15 minute Break
 
2:30 – 3:30 pm:
Afternoon Session #2  (12 min talks + 3 min questions)

 
2:30 pm
Emily Gehrels - Harvard
Modulating and addressing colloidal interactions using light
 
2:45 pm
Carl Goodrich - Harvard
A binding-dependent mechanism for selectively enhanced diffusion in crosslinked polymer gels
 
3:00 pm
Zijie Qu - Brown
Changes in the flagellar bundling time account for variations in swimming behavior of flagellated bacteria in viscous media
 
3:15 pm
Alexander Klotz - MIT
Dynamics of knots in stretched DNA
 
3:30 – 4:15 pm:
The Post-PhD Experience: Transition from PhD to Faculty or Industry

 
Panel Discussion and Q&A with:
Feodor Hilitski - Internal Consultant - Ab Initio Software
Ben Rogers - Assistant Professor of Physics - Brandeis University
Walter Schwenger - Scientist - Sanofi
 
4:30 pm:
Boston Soft Matter Social @ MIT Muddy Charles Pub (cash only)

Continued discussion and community building.

Registration & Abstract Submission

We have received far more interest and registrations for our conference than we ever could have expected! As such, we have reached the full capacity for our conference and have had to close the registration period early.

Conference Funding and Sponsorship

Funding generously provided by the American Society for Cell Biology.
Sponsorship by Boston Soft Matter Meetups and the Physics of Living Systems @MIT.
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Meeting Organizers:

Stephen DeCamp
Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health
 
Guillaume Duclos
Brandeis University, Department of Physics
 
Peter Foster
Harvard University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
 
Hannah Yevick
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Biology
For more meeting information and registration, please visit:
http://www.ascb.org/ascb-meetings/biological-soft-matter-meeting/
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Stephen J. DeCamp