KU Leuven

Jan Vermant
Professor of Chemical Engineering, KU Leuven
Professor of Soft Materials, ETH Zurich
Prof. Vermant studied Chemical Engineering at KU Leuven in Belgium, obtaining the doctoral degree in 1996 under the supervision of Prof. Jan Mewis. He was a postdoctoral fellow of Elf Aquitaine and the Fund for Scientific Research - (FWO) Vlaanderen, which had him working at Stanford University with G. Fuller, The CNRS-CEMEF (P. Navard) and CNRS -CRPP (D. Roux), the Unversity of Delaware and KU Leuven. In 2000 he joined the faculty at the department of Chemical Engineering at KU Leuven, becoming a full professor in 2005. In 2014 he joined the Materials Department at the ETH Zürich, where he now resides. He has held visiting appointments at Stanford University (USA), University of Delaware (USA), Princeton University (USA), the Forschungszentrum jülich (G) and the ESPCI (F). Major Awards include a Dupont Young Faculty Award (USA), the FWO-ExxonMobil European Chemical Science & Engineering Award (EU), the Journal of Rheology Publication Award. Jan Vermant is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). He is the editor of Rheologica Acta.
Brandeis University

Zvonimir Dogic
Associate Professor of Physics
The research interests of Zvonimir Dogic and his group lie in elucidating rules that govern self-assembly of materials, with a particular emphasis being placed on the role the particle's shape and chirality play in these assembly processes. We strive to create very simple model systems in which precise control is possible over all the relevant parameters. This enables a rigorous and detailed comparison with theoretical predictions. The particles we use have very simple hard core repulsive interactions. Despite the apparent simplicity of these building blocks, we have demonstrated that through a careful choice of particle shape and chirality it is possible to assemble at least half a dozen unique structures.