October 23, 2017

Lisa Manning has received the 2018 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award from the American Physical Society (APS) for her use of computational and analytical tools to develop microscopic understanding of flow in disordered materials, ranging from metallic glasses to biological tissues. This prestigious national award is given to one woman physicist each year for scientific achievements within the first 10 years of receiving her PhD. The award includes a $2,500 cash prize and additional funds for invited lectures at up to four institutions. Lisa will accept the award at the APS March meeting in Los Angeles.

Read more at:

• asnews.syr.edu
• aps.org

October 6, 2017

As part of Syracuse University’s “Orange Central” homecoming program, Lisa Manning gave a public lecture on how physics can describe whether cancer cells behave like solids or like fluids, including how the relationship between a cell’s perimeter and its area can predict whether it will remain stationary or migrate. Read more at asnews.syr.edu.

September 2017

Lisa Manning is the PI on a $25,000 Cottrell Scholar Collaborative Award from the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement to fund ongoing two-way partnerships between minority-serving institutions (MSI) and primarily white institutions (PWI). This project will begin with a two-day workshop hosted at the University of California-Irvine in June 2018. The ultimate goal of these collaborations is to develop best practices for increasing participation in STEM research among underrepresented minority populations.

August 2017

Leo Sutter, an undergraduate physics major from the Rochester Institute of Technology, successfully completed a 10-week Syracuse Biomaterials Institute Research Experience for Undergraduates in the Manning group. Under the direction of postdoctoral associate Matthias Merkel, Leo studied the mechanical behavior of anisotropic confluent tissues. Working at RIT with Dr. Moumita Das, he has also studied the mechanical behavior of cancerous cells.

July 2017

An article by Sven Wijtmans and Lisa Manning, titled “Disentangling sound modes and defects in disordered solids,” was selected for the cover for the 34^th issue of Soft Matter, published July 27, 2017. This article discusses a new method to isolate localized defects from extended vibrational modes in disordered solids. Read and download this article from the Soft Matter website.

April 2017

Gonca Erdemci-Tandogan, Preeti Sahu, and Lisa Manning have organized and launched the Women in Physics (WiP) group with the focus of encouraging women to enter the field of physics, and providing female graduate and undergraduate students a support system through professional and social activities. This group is funded by the SU Physics Department, and is open to all interest participants.

The development of the WiP group is the latest in a series of efforts by the Manning group and the Physics department to elevate the role of women in STEM. In January 2016, Lisa co-organized SU’s Undergraduate Women in Physics Conference (CUWiP), presented by the American Physical Society. Read more at news.syr.edu.

January 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Sven Wijtmans for successfully defending his PhD thesis. Dr. Wijtmans’ thesis, “Defects and Rearrangements in Disordered Solids,” investigates the properties of disordered materials—glasses, polymers, granular matter, dense colloids, and gels–while under strain, and is available via SURFACE.

The Syracuse Museum of Science and Technology (the MoST) produces a “science minute” video every couple months describing a connection between science and our daily lives. This month’s video features Michael Czajkowski explaining a bit about the physics of bottle flipping. You can watch the video here:

Postdoctoral associate Matthias Merkel was awarded the postdoctoral speaker award by the APS Group for Statistical and Nonlinear Physics (GSNP). He presented his work on a rigidity transition in three-dimensional confluent tissues in a dedicated award session at the APS March Meeting in New Orelans.

Congratulations to postdoctoral associate Matthias Merkel, who was selected as a finalist for the APS Group for Nonlinear and Statistical Physics (GSNP) postdoctoral speaker award.  He is one of five finalists who will be giving a talk in the special award session at the APS March meeting in New Orleans.