Conference report - Emily Cooper, Physical Aspects of Polymer Science 2024

This month (September 2024) I had the privilege of attending the Physical Aspects of Polymer Science conference (PAPS 2024), where I gave a talk on my recent work on ‘Studying the Structure of Liquid Crystal Elastomers using Small- and Wide- Angle X-ray Scattering’ and also displayed a poster titled ‘The Role of Internal Strain in a Nematic Liquid Crystal Elastomer’.

It was fantastic to learn about the diverse research within the polymer science field and to be warmly welcomed into a new research community. At the conference we heard many great talks on recent research, such as improving the understanding of biopolymer networks, simulating polymers in active flow and polymer development for novel batteries.

I’m grateful to the organisers at the Institute of Physics and the University of Edinburgh, as well as my supervisors - Helen Gleeson, Devesh Mistry and Peter Hine - for all their invaluable support throughout my PhD. I’d finally like to thank the Soft Matter Physics research group at the University of Leeds for supporting me to attend this conference.