PMSE Centennial: Celebration of Success and New Frontiers in Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering

The PMSE Division celebrates our 100th year in 2024. This symposium will highlight research advances and new directions in Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering and honor the contributions of PMSE researchers.

PMSE Centennial: Panel Discussion on the Future of Plastics

The PMSE Division celebrates our 100th year in 2024. This panel discussion with PMSE researchers will explore new research directions in the fields of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering.

PMSE Centennial: Future Leaders of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering

The PMSE Division celebrates our 100th year in 2024. This symposium will honor graduate student and postdoctoral researchers who have made significant contributions to their respective fields within Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering and are selected as PMSE Future Leaders.

PMSE/POLY Poster Session: PMSE Centennial Poster Session for Early Career Investigators in Academia, Industry, and National Laboratorys

Early career researchers (within 5 years of Ph.D.) in academia, industry, and national labs are encouraged to submit their poster to this session in order to be considered for this PMSE Centennial Poster Award.

PMSE/POLY Poster Session: Centennial Poster Session for Graduate Students

Current graduate students are encouraged to submit their poster to this session in order to be considered for this PMSE Centennial Poster Award.

PMSE/POLY Poster Session: Centennial Poster Session for Undergraduate Students

Current undergraduate students are encouraged to submit their poster to this session in order to be considered for this PMSE Centennial Poster Award.

100 Years of Polymer Structures: Active Materials for Thin Films and Interfaces

As a celebration of our 100-year history of the polymer hypothesis, we propose a symposium on active polymeric materials in thin films and interfaces. This symposium will include featured speakers from Germany, especially Freiburg, where Prof. Staudinger elaborated his seminal idea of polymers as covalently linked chain molecules and where the tradition of excellence in polymer research have continued. The symposium will explore recent developments in functional polymers, including but not limited to active materials and responsive materials for various applications.

2D Materials-Polymer Interfaces and Nanocomposites

This symposium will highlight the latest developments in the interfacial chemistry and engineering of the hard/soft 2D materials interface. The expansion of the classes of 2D materials including: graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), metal chalcogenide phosphates (MCPs), and perovskites among many others, has given rise to the study of an intriguing set of material properties. Combined with advances in functional polymer platforms that augment the intrinsic properties of the 2D material, little is known about this so-called “hard/soft” interface. This symposium will cover the chemistry, engineering, and fundamental investigations of the polymer/2D material interface with topics involving synthesis, functionalization, heterostructures, characterization, and chemistries of the hybrid materials and their incorporation into useful form factors such as: solution processable inks, opto-electronic devices, sensors, catalysts, memory devices and more.  Interdisciplinary topics related to chemistry materials science, mechanics, physics, and engineering will be presented by invited speakers in order to accelerate the development of this exciting class of materials and applications. Interdisciplinary presentations from invited speakers are also aimed to motivate synergistic research collaborations in the fields of functional polymers and 2D materials interfaces. Additionally, the symposium organizers are very passionate about including a diverse set of invited speakers, with many international and government speakers, as well as more balanced representation from prominent female scientists.

Adaptive Materials from Dynamci Polymer Networks and Composites

Polymer materials offer promising solutions to some of the world’s most urgent challenges. Compared to traditional thermoplastics and thermoset networks, polymer networks with dynamic junction chemistries that rely on non-covalent, supramolecular, and dynamic-covalent interactions provide many advantages in creating materials that are more easily processed, applied, and recycled than their “static” counterparts. By incorporating dynamic bonds, a wide range of polymer materials have been developed to yield dynamic and reconfigurable networks for various applications, such as injectable hydrogels for biomedicine, alternative plastics, flexible electronics, and energy harvesting/storage devices. This symposium aims to unify these disparate applications through a shared focus on designing and engineering dynamic polymer network interactions and dynamic composite materials, to connect and advance this growing field.

Advances in Polymer Materials for Biotechnology

Polymers are becoming increasingly important in advancing biotechnology applications, from enzyme engineering to biorealistic materials discovery. This symposium highlights recent discoveries that utilize biology to manipulate polymer structure and use polymer-based materials to imitate biology. Enzyme engineering techniques that allow control over components such as chirality and monomer sequence can greatly contribute to the fields of optics, computing, and medical technologies. Additionally, mimicking biology through polymers can improve our comprehension of functions such as neuromodulation, neuromorphic computing, and the growth of biomaterials like muscle and skin.

Biodegradable Polymers, Biodegradation of Polymers, Bio-Derived Polymers: Sustainable Chemistry Drive to a Better Life

This symposium will cover:  (a)  Understanding polymer structure design vs. its biodegradation in broad chemistry; (b) propose new bio-feedstock potentially used in bioderived polymers; (c) study the comparison of carbon footprint of conventional polymers vs. biodegradable or bioderived ones, and understand the benefits in a circular economy; (d) showcase sharing of the use of biodegradable or bio-derived polymers in diverse industries and their performance gap vs. the conventional materials; (e)  advanced prediction modelling of polymer degradation; (f) a  survey to identify the technology barrier to solve biodegradable/bioderived polymers, including the challenges on test methodology

Biological and Biologically Inspried Adhesion: Enhanced Bonding at the Interface between Life and Materials Science

This symposium will cover:  (a)  Understanding polymer structure design vs. its biodegradation in broad chemistry; (b) propose new bio-feedstock potentially used in bioderived polymers; (c) study the comparison of carbon footprint of conventional polymers vs. biodegradable or bioderived ones, and understand the benefits in a circular economy; (d) showcase sharing of the use of biodegradable or bio-derived polymers in diverse industries and their performance gap vs. the conventional materials; (e)  advanced prediction modelling of polymer degradation; (f) a  survey to identify the technology barrier to solve biodegradable/bioderived polymers, including the challenges on test methodology

Cooperative Research Award Symposium

An updated description will be provided once the award is announced.

Department of Defense Symposium on Excellence in Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering

In the past century, polymeric materials science and engineering have tremendously impacted our nation and beyond on critical technology development ranging from structural materials to functional devices for military and defense industries. In addition, these technologies have directly influenced many other sectors, including automobiles, energy, bio-medicals, sensors, and household commodities. This symposium celebrates the success of a group of selected scientists from DOD funded programs who made a tremendous impact through their fundamental research in polymeric materials, especially related to the design and characterization of functional materials, advances in optics and electronics, coatings, and sensors. In addition to technical talks, this symposium will have an expert panel session (academia, industry, and government labs) to discuss current challenges and future opportunities. The topics include leveraging partnerships with cross-sectors and interdisciplinary teams, increasing productivity, efficiency, competitiveness, and accelerating breakthroughs. In addition to technical talks, this symposium will have an expert panel session. This panel will include world-renowned experts (academia, industry, and government labs) to discuss current challenges and future opportunities. The topics include leveraging partnerships with cross-sectors and interdisciplinary teams, increasing productivity, efficiency, competitiveness, and accelerating breakthroughs.

Functional Conjugated Polymers: Design, Synthesis, Characterization, and Emerging Applications

This symposium will be a truly interdisciplinary event covering a broad range of topics including conjugated polymers, theoretical computation, synthetic chemistry, polymer physics, doping, redox processes, process engineering, and device applications.

General: Fundamental Characterization and Properties of Polymers

PMSE solicits submissions in fundamental characterization and properties, but whose topics are not directly related to other PMSE-sponsored symposia.

General: Novel Application of Polymeric Materials

PMSE solicits submissions in novel applications of polymeric materials, but whose topics are not directly related to other PMSE-sponsored symposia.

General: Synthesis, Processing, and Fabrication of Polymeric Materials

PMSE solicits submissions in synthesis and processing methods which use polymeric materials, but whose topics are not directly related to other PMSE-sponsored symposia.

Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success: Symposium in Honor of Cato Thomas Laurencin

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Machine Learning, Data, and Automation for Polymer Discovery

The need for optimized design, synthesis and processing conditions is ubiquitous in technology, impacting fields as diverse as electronics, medicine, metallurgy, solar energy conversion and multifunctional coatings. However, obtaining a target material with desired properties is time-intensive because of the high-dimensional and complex synthetic and processing parameters space. The sampling of the large synthetic and processing landscape is generally done through human intuition, based on the knowledge of physical chemistry principles, and trial-and-error approaches, leading to clustered, sparse and incomplete datasets. In the past decade, automated robotic technologies have been shown to markedly increase productivity in both medicine and materials science research fields by offloading repetitive works from human scientists and performing experiments in faster speed, greater precision, and better accuracy. With the aid of high performance computing in recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has been successfully applied to hard materials and small molecule discovery and engineering. Physically-informed machine learning approaches including clustering, regression, and Bayesian methods, as well as artificial neural networks, have been applied towards these elements, and have used and contributed to publicly accessible databases. This new experimental paradigm has enormous potential benefits, as the robotic hardware and AI software technologies required to realize this goal are just reaching maturity. The proposed symposium will address the main progress and challenges in the research of AI-guided polymer synthesis and processing, and cover the entire life cycle of these studies, from computational design, physically-guided AI, experimental automation, to control methods, synthetic databases, and robotic integration. The proposed symposium will have both invited and contributed talks.

Next-Generation Structural Nanocomposites: Advances and Challenges

This symposium will discuss new frontiers of polymer matrix nanocomposites for current and future structural applications, with topics covering advancements and challenges in novel chemistries and morphologies, new syntheses, dispersion processes, characterization, and modeling. Specific topics include nanocomposite dispersion and stabilization, nanocomposites in unique polymer systems, nanoscale fillers for high- temperature and pre-ceramic polymers, data science (AI/ML), molecular and mesoscale simulations, nanocomposites in structural thermoplastic and thermoset polymers, nanofillers as mechanical property modifiers. Further topics may include advanced characterization with electron microscopy (SEM, STEM, EELS, and electron tomography), scanning probe microscopy (AFM, AFM-IR, peak-force), in situ-spectroscopy, synchrotron X-ray and neutron, and miniaturized mechanical testing, as well as multiscale simulation effort, includes classical, quantum-mechanical, coarse-grained, finite-element, and informatics.

Polymeric Materials for Sustainability: Carbon Neutral/Negative Polymer Technollgies for Energy and the Environment

Technologies enabling carbon neutral/negative energy economies employ polymer and polymer-composite materials owing to their ability to serve as selective membranes, barriers, charge carriers, or active species in devices. This symposium will highlight advances in research applying polymer materials in areas of carbon capture, membrane separations for water and fuel purification, chemical conversion, and energy harvesting/storage applications. Further development of these materials for cutting-edge device performance requires a multidisciplinary approach that embraces fields of polymer science, chemical and materials engineering, chemistry, and physics. We encourage submissions that span the pipeline of materials development including design, preparation, modeling/simulation, characterization, and device testing.

Polymers for a Circular Economy

This session will focus on technologies and strategies aiming to give a second life to valuable polymeric materials and that enable the circular economy. The topics covered will include:

• polymer design for recyclability and development of chemical aids
• pre- and post-treatments to increase Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) content to enable mechanical recycling
• mechanistic studies of catalytic and chemical transformations for recycling of polymers to enable chemical recycling
• upcycling of waste plastics into value-added raw materials
• analyses to evaluate the impacts (i.e., circularity, economic, social and environmental) of circular plastics ecosystems. This would include analysis to cover the system’s level perspective from process to supply chain to economy to global to evaluate potential feasibility and tradeoff for emerging technologies to be implemented into the market
• Other topics on polymer circularity are welcome, especially around ecosystem level optimization

Polymers that are Non-linear

This will cover a broad range of topics related to non-linear polymers, including the design, synthesis, characterization as well as the mechanical and physical properties of these complex systems.  These will include cyclic polymers, dendrimers, star polymers, and supramolecular materials.  This will re-establish both younger and experienced investigators for this emerging area.

PMSE/POLY Plenary Lecture and Awards Reception

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ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science: Symposium in Honor of Frank S. Bates

This award recognizes and encourages the achievements of scientists who are active in the fields of polymer and polymer materials research. The symposium will be held in honor of Frank S. Bates, a professor from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Bioconjugate Chemistry Lectureship and Award Symposium

The Bioconjugate Chemistry Lectureship Award recognizes an outstanding researcher who has made a major impact working at the interface between the biological and human-made worlds. The symposium will be held in honor of awardee when announced.

Climbing Macromolecular Ladders: Elevating the Design, Synthesis, Properties and Applications of Ladder Polymers

The symposium is dedicated to the unique architecture of ladder polymers, encompassing their synthesis, properties, and materials applications. The concept of ladder polymers is as old as polymer science itself. However, their developments have been slow compared to other polymer architectures due to many challenges associated with the ladder architecture. In the past decade, there is a burgeoning interest in ladder polymers from polymer scientists with diverse backgrounds, primarily driven by the distinctive materials properties these structures afford, such as the intriguingly rigid chain conformation, extraordinary stability, intrinsic microporosity, and superior conductivity, etc.

Significant recent progress has been made both in fundamental studies on the synthesis and properties of ladder polymers and in their applications across various domains.

Eastman Chemical Student Award in Applied Polymer Science

The symposium for the Eastman Chemical Student Award in Applied Polymer Science invites six graduate research students to present on their research. One winner will be selected and recognized at the PMSE/POLY Plenary Session.

The Fate of Polymers: Perfluoroalkyl Subtances, Microplastics, and Degradation Strategies

The durability of modern polymeric materials has created a challenge in identifying pathways for their transformation into benign species. Microplastics and perfluoroalkyl substances comprise two major classes of industrial materials that persist in the environment. This symposium will encompass chemical and catalytic strategies toward the degradation of both microplastic and perfluoroalkyl substances.

The symposium also encourages submissions covering upcycling strategies for plastics into value-added raw materials and the design of non-fluorinated alternatives to perfluoroalkyl substances that address paths forward for these two classes of materials.

General Papers/New Concepts in Polymeric Materials

PMSE solicits submissions in synthesis, novel applications, and characterization methods for polymeric materials for this symposium, but whose topics are not directly related to other PMSE-sponsored symposia.

Henkel Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Science and Engineering

The Henkel Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Science and Engineering is given to recognize a graduate student or recent graduate who has completed an outstanding Ph.D. thesis in polymeric research. This symposium covers topics related to the field of study related to the winner’s work.

Journal of Polymer Science Innovation Award

The Journal of Polymer Science Innovation Award recognizes significant research innovation and achievement in a polymer scientist under 40. This symposium is a half day session highlighting topics related to the awardee’s work.

Navigating Nanoscale: Innovations in Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Machine Learning for Polymeric Materials

Polymeric materials are ubiquitous in modern technology and are crucial to many industries due to their unique properties, such as mechanical strength, flexibility, and chemical stability. However, understanding the behavior of polymeric materials at the atomic and molecular level remains a challenging task. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has emerged as powerful tool for studying the behavior of polymeric materials and can provide insight into the fundamental mechanisms that govern their behavior.

The symposium will cover broad range of topics of developing and utilizing molecular dynamics simulations for various classes of polymeric systems, including but not limited to synthetic polymers, bio-/natural polymers, and composite materials. The topics will include:

• Employing MD simulations to understand the structure and property of different classes of
         polymers and polymer composites.
• Experimental-computational contributions that provide validation for measurements and/or
         computational methods
• Biopolymer simulations and ML for biomolecular polymers
• Utilizing MD simulations towards design and development of novel polymeric materials with desired properties.
• Using MD simulations to bridge different length scales (coarse-grain MD, continuum level modeling).
• Development of atomistic and coarse-grained machine learning based force fields for polymeric systems
• Exploiting state of the art machine learning frameworks tools on MD generated data for accelerated understanding of polymeric materials.
• Improving the computational efficiency of MD simulations for polymeric systems via GPU-based methods

PMSE Early Stage Investigator Symposium

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PMSE Future Faculty Symposium

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PMSE/POLY Poster Session

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Porous Polymers

Porous materials, especially porous polymers, are at the heart of many technologies needed to solve major societal challenges and which align with many of the UN’s sustainable development goals. Notable examples include membranes for gas separation and water purification, crucial for access to clean water and energy security for our vulnerable communities. The secret to high-performance porous polymers lies in their chemistry, which is critical for applications such as hydrogen separation and carbon capture. The Porous Polymers Symposium will highlight how elevating polymer chemistry and materials science brings it to the forefront of the advanced technologies that are of vital importance to mankind.

Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings

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Synthesis, Properties, and Application of Sustainable Polymers

Plastics are a benefit to society; however, they have created a global challenge as they pollute our land, water, and air. This pressing issue has demanded that scientists overcome these obstacles by designing new materials, redesigning current plastics, creating new processing methods, and other unique solutions. Realizing the importance of producing novel strategies to address plastic pollution, this symposium broadly focuses on the topic of sustainable materials and materials that contribute to the circular economy.

The following emerging topics are of interest: synthesis of new biodegradable and/or recyclable polymers, decreasing the waste or energy used in processing, catalytic depolymerization and upcycling, polymers and composites from natural products or waste, plastics with a closed-loop life cycle, self-healing materials, vitrimers, and other unique solutions for creating environmentally friendly materials.

Future Conferences