Fraser Stoddart and post-doc Mélissa Dumartin co-chaired a workshop organized by the Foresight Institute and sponsored by the IIN. Held from September 20th to 21st, the workshop gathered prestigious Feynman award winners (Dean Astumian and Joseph Lyding) and MRS award winner (Natalie Stingelin) with 40 academics and engineers from all over the world to discuss and exchange ideas on the topic of “Contemporary Materials Science: How Can Molecular Machines Help?” The technical competition brought together top scientists from different fields in chemistry (polymers, supramolecular chemistry, materials sciences, computational science, physical chemistry) and asked them to brainstorm about the innovative potential of molecular machines in materials. During this workshop, teams of scientists developed research proposals to present to panel of expert judges (Marina Sofos from DARPA, Ale Lukaszew from ARPA-E and Youssry Botros from PanaceaNano). This challenging format is enhanced by the diversity of expertise in the room–fostering unusual collaborations, generating new ideas, and giving rise to potentially fundable research proposals. Great job everyone!
The Feynman Prize award ceremony on Saturday September 21 recognized the achievement in nanotechnologies of two brilliant women — Prof. Giulia Galli from the University of Chicago (Theory) and Prof. Lulu Qian from Caltech (Experimental). Well done, ladies!
