Levich Institute Seminar Announcement, 03/11/2008

Tuesday, 03/11/2008 2:00 PM Steinman Hall, Room #312 (Chemical Engineering Conference Room) Professor Richard Weiss Georgetown University Department of Chemistry "Molecular Organogels - Structure, Dynamics of Formation and Applications" [This is a CCNY/Columbia NSF-IGERT Soft Materials seminar]

ABSTRACT

The self-assembly of low molecular mass gelators (LMOGs) into fibrillar networks (SAFINs) to encapsulate large volume fractions of organic liquids will be discussed. Results from experiments starting from molecular design of LMOGs, probing the mechanisms of their self-assembly (by spectroscopic and rheological methods), and the structures of the SAFINs at different length scales will be presented. Some applications of molecular organogels to art conservation will be described as well.

BRIEF ACADEMIC/EMPLOYMENT BACKGROUND:

Richard G. Weiss attended Brown University (B. Sc. 1965) and received his M. S. (1967) and Ph. D. (1969) degrees from the University of Connecticut under the direction of Eugene I. Snyder. Following a 2-year postdoctoral stay at California Institute of Technology with George S. Hammond under the auspices of a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship, he spent 1971-4 at the Instituto de Quimica of the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil as Visiting Assistant Professor and Overseas Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. He moved to Georgetown University in 1974 and is Professor of Chemistry there.

CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Photochemistry and photophysics in anisotropic media, and the design and utilization of novel liquid crystals, polymeric materials, ionic liquids, and molecular organogels.

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