Intervenants

Ludovic Berthier (CNRS, ESPCI Paris - PSL)

Ludovic Berthier is a Directeur de Recherche CNRS, at the Laboratoire Gulliver, ESPCI–PSL. He is a specialist in disordered systems, having introduced new theoretical methods into the physics of glassy systems and was one of the first to explore the notion of effective temperature in non-equilibrium systems. He participated in the numerical and experimental demonstration of dynamic heterogeneities in glasses.

Roman Boulatov (University of Liverpool)

Roman Boulatov is currently a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Liverpool. His research program aims at developing rigorous, quantitative, predictive molecular-level understanding of the physical processes that enable polymer mechanochemistry and using that knowledge to design new mechanoresponsive polymers. His group’s recent accomplishments include methods to quantify the molecular-level conditions responsible for flow-induced mechanochemistry in sonicated solutions, and the demonstration of shear-induced formation of new backbone bonds in unsaturated polyolefins.

Juliette Cayer-Barrioz (CNRS, École Centrale de Lyon)

Juliette Cayer-Barrioz is a CNRS Director of Research. Her research activities at the Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes (LTDS) in Ecole Centrale de Lyon focus on surface phenomena and dynamics of confined lubricated interfaces. Her multidisciplinary approach—based on unique experimental devices developed at the LTDS—combines physics, interfacial chemistry and mechanics, rheology and friction. She serves as an editor of Tribology Letters since 2017. She was awarded the 2025 Peter Jost Award in Tribology.

Zahra Fakhraai (University of Pennsylvania)

Zahra Fakhraai is a materials scientist who is a professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Fakhraai's research is focused on glass transition, optical properties of hybrid organic-inorganic nanomaterials, and polymer physics. She studies the impact of nanoconfinement on the structure and thermodynamics of materials.

Emanuela Del Gado (Georgetown University)

Emanuela Del Gado is a physics Professor and the Director of the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology at Georgetown University. Her research aims at the spatiotemporal characterization of microscopic dynamical processes and the unraveling of microstructural underpinnings in the rheology of soft materials, with a focus on colloidal gels and other soft solids.

Philippe Gutfreund (Institut Laue-Langevin)

Philipp Gutfreund is a staff scientist at ILL - Grenoble. His main areas of expertise are microscopic structure and dynamics of polymeric liquids in out-of-equilibrium or in confinement. He uses mainly neutron scattering techniques, especially in situ shear and rheology–scattering coupling experiments.

Rong Long (University of Colorado Boulder)

Rong Long is currently an Associate Professor and Lyall Faculty Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Colorado Boulder. His research interests include continuum mechanics of soft materials, fracture mechanics, contact mechanics, adhesion and biomechanics.

Kirsten Martens (CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes)

Kirsten Martens is a theoretical physicist and CNRS researcher at LIPhy (Univ. Grenoble Alpes & CNRS). Her work focuses on the statistical physics of disordered materials, polymer networks, and gels, with a particular interest in multiscale modeling.

Giuseppe Milano (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II)

Giuseppe Milano is Full Professor at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy since 2021. Before joining University of Naples, he was Full Professor at the Frontier Research Center for Organic Materials (FROM) at Yamagata University in Japan. His research deals with molecular simulations of soft matter systems, combining atomistic and coarse-grained models. His current work includes studies on polymer interfaces, nanoplastics, and biological membranes, and the development of the OCCAM code for high-performance computing applications.

Marcus Müller (Georg-August University)

Marcus Müller is a professor of physics at the Göttingen University Institute for Theoretical Physics. Using computer simulation and self-consistent field theory he studies statistical physics of soft matter with a focus on polymer physics, interfaces, and biologically inspired problems.

Renaud Nicolay (ESPCI Paris - PSL)

Renaud Nicolay is Professor of organic, polymer and materials chemistry at ESPCI Paris and PSL University. Since 2024, he has been the director of the “Chimie Moléculaire, Macromoléculaire, Matériaux” (C3M) laboratory. He develops synthetic methodologies for macromolecular engineering, including the design of stimuli-responsive, self-healing and recyclable materials.

Clive Siviour (University of Oxford)

Professor Clive Siviour is Professor of Materials Engineering and Head of the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford. His research focuses on the mechanical response of materials under high strain rate deformation, with a particular emphasis on polymers.

Siegfried Stapf (Technische Universität Ilmenau)

Prof. Siegfried Stapf is Chair of Technical Physics II/Polymer Physics at Technische Universität Ilmenau. He is an internationally recognized expert in applying nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to polymer physics and soft matter dynamics, with contributions spanning multiscale structure–dynamics relations.