It is my great pleasure to announce the recipients of ILCS Honors & Awards 2020.
This year, we have received nomination of some 40 candidates. I would like to congratulate the winners for their research achievements and continued contributions to the liquid crystal community in future.
We will hold the ILCS Honors & Awards Ceremony online on July 29th and 30th, 2020, where the awards will be remotely conferred to the winners and the award presentations are given. The tentative schedule of the ceremony is given below, and all the ILCS members are encouraged to attend. Further details will be communicated to you via emails and the society website.
Last, not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the members of the Honors & Awards Committee for their intensive dedicated contributions to select the most qualified individuals for every category. I also thank the nominators whose mindful efforts are the basis of the continued success of the ILCS Honors & Awards.
Please join me to congratulate the winners.
Sincerely,
Hiroshi Yokoyama
President, ILCS
Glenn H. Brown Prize (alphabetical order)
Greta Babakhanova (Kent State Univ): Materials/Experimental
For her outstanding work on nematic elastomer coatings demonstrating the ability to program different surface profiles to the elastomer coating via its nematic director. It highlights general principles underlying this design mechanism by directly relating surface topography to the bend and splay of the director field and identifying the role of topological defects.
Clarissa Dietrich (Univ of Stuttgart): Chemistry/Experimental
For her deep understanding of the interplay between chirality and elasticity in both lyotropic and thermotropic liquid crystals. It concerns the development of chiral structures in liquid crystals and the effects of the confinement by interfaces, magnetic field, elasticity, and chirality.
Devesh Mistry (Univ of Leeds): Materials/Experimental
For his outstanding work on designing and synthesizing new acrylate liquid crystal elastomers and the development of mechanically switchable lenses for vision correction. His work is important not just in the context of liquid crystals, polymers and soft matter, but more broadly in auxetic materials and biomaterials.
Lisa Tran (Univ of Pennsylvania): Physics/Experimental
For her outstanding work on the geometric confinement introducing complex defect structures and revealing new insight into liquid crystal self-organization. Her work exploits an elegant interplay of topological constraints and geometric frustration to guide the formation of unexpected self-assembled complex structures.
Michi Nakata Prize for Early Career Achievements
Danqing Liu (Eindhoven Univ of Technology)
For her outstanding achievement in stimuli-responsive liquid crystals and liquid crystal coating systems in a wide range of applications covering from soft robotics and advanced optics to healthcare systems. The diversity of her research will make her hold the leadership in the field.
Mid Career Research Excellence Award
Samsung:
Alenka Mertelj (Jozef Stefan Institute): Physics/Experimental
For the discovery of both magnetic and electric polar order in nematic phase and new spatially modulated splay nematic phase that has macroscopic electric polarization. Her scientific achievement will stimulate the research on ferronematics and modulated phases.
LG:
Torsten Hegmann (Kent State Univ): Chemistry, Materials/Experimental
For his pioneering research and leadership in the field of nanomaterial-liquid crystal interfaces, focusing on the surface chemistry of numerous metals, metal oxides and semiconductor nanomaterials. He is one of the leaders in chiral synthesis with a strong future and made outstanding contribution to the synthesis of hybrid and chiral materials.
Pierre Gilles de Gennes ILCS Prize
Hideo Takezoe (Tokyo Institute of Technology)
For his outstanding contributions to liquid crystal science and technology, the discovery of the antiferroelectricity in liquid crystals and the polar phases formed by achiral bent-core mesogens, both opened completely new directions in liquid crystal
research and inspired numerous scientists from physics, chemistry, and engineering, from theory, experiment, and applications. His scientific achievement and continued leadership have made significant contributions to the advancement of the liquid crystal community over the world.
Honored Members
Oleg Lavrentovich (Kent State Univ)
For his outstanding achievement in research in the field of liquid crystals and continued community services to the international liquid crystal societ