Industrial scientists (Yaqian Liu, BASF) are often the featured speaker at the Wednesday evening Squishy Science seminar.

The MRSEC has four collaborative Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs). We have also developed strong connections among Center researchers that reach across the IRG boundaries and draw on complementary strengths that pair theory with experiment or new perspectives from the collective of our broad expertise. The current IRGs are:

IRG I: Multiscale Mechanics of Films and Interfaces
This IRG investigates mechanical properties in thin films and interfaces that are both a scientific challenge and an important technological problem. Understanding the mechanical behavior of materials requires insight into phenomena at different length scales. This IRG has established the importance of mechanics in describing thin films.

IRG II: Engineering Materials and Techniques for Biological Studies at Cellular Scales
This IRG focuses on understanding the mechanical properties of the cell, a central object of study in biology, and its structural components. Tools and techniques necessary to study problems in biology at the scale of a single cell are being developed using the materials expertise of MRSEC participants. This IRG has established the use of soft lithography and patterning in the study of the behavior of individual cells.

IRG III: Interface-Mediated Assembly of Soft Materials
The goal of this IRG is to make important advances towards directing the assembly of soft materials, by using interfaces between distinct materials as templates for controlling the dynamic assembly of structure. This IRG has introduced the study of single fluid droplets coated with solid particles as an area of active research.

Seed/IRG IV: Materials and Physiology
This IRG has grown from a seed effort whose goal is to investigate the mechanical behavior responsible for physiological function of biological systems. An important outcome of this work will be concepts to creat new "smart" materials that exploit our knowledge of biological systems to improve materials function. This IRG seeks to establish this area a major new effort for materials research within the MRSEC program.