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Rheology BulletinVol. 71, No. 2 (July 2002)Rakesh Gupta, Editor |
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Contents
Executive Committee - 2001-2003
Committees
Ronald G. Larson
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Technical Program: | |
Timothy P. Lodge (612) 625-0877; Fax: (612) 624-1589 e-mail: lodge@chem.umn.edu |
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Local Arrangements: | |
Christopher W. Macosko (612) 625-0092; Fax: (612) 626-1686 e-mail: macosko@cems.umn.edu |
Short Course A two-day short course on Microfluidics and Microrheology will be offered in Minneapolis, October 12-13, 2002. The instructors are Dr. Andrea Chow of Caliper Technologies Corp. and Professor Steve Granick of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Additional details about the meeting and short course are given at the meeting web pages.
The
extraordinary ability of Ronald G. Larson was recognized early on by his
undergraduate mentors at the University of Minnesota. Contrary to normal
departmental practice, they retained Ron at Minnesota for all three of his
degrees, BS in 1975, MS in 1977, and Ph.D. in 1980. Upon graduation, he
assumed a position at the Bell Laboratories, and, in time, became a
Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff. After a remarkably productive
period there, he left in 1996 to join the faculty of the University of
Michigan and in 2000 became the Granger Brown Professor and Head of the
Department of Chemical Engineering.
At a relatively early age, Ron has become one of the world’s preeminent authorities across a broad range of rheology subspecialties. Throughout his career, he has been a careful and prolific author, contributing to both the research and educational literature of the field. Inspection of his publication list demonstrates convincingly that he has advanced in central ways most of the important branches of current rheological research, a remarkable accomplishment for one whose Ph.D. thesis only twenty-plus years ago dealt with flow through porous media.
Ron is a “Renaissance Man” of rheology, excelling in molecular and continuum theory, molecular simulation, and experiment. Consider, for example, three of the many areas with which he is identified:
Constitutive Theories This is an area that established his reputation as a heavyweight in rheology. This is all the more remarkable since, as most know, the field is notoriously “messy” and very difficult to comprehend in a unified way. That is precisely what Ron did. Throughout his research in the mid-80s on distributions of relaxation times and the influence thereof on constitutive behavior, he revealed a relationship between molecular and continuum approaches that was not previously appreciated. This culminated in his book, Constitutive Equations for Polymer Melts and Solutions (Butterworths, 1988). Many veteran rheologists have learned much from this important book. His contributions to constitutive theory continue to the present. A recent example is his work with Mead and Doi (1998-present) on constraint-release theories. These results permit one to apply the Doi-Edwards theory to highly nonlinear flows, an extremely important generalization. Likewise, his work with McLeish (1996-present) has explained extensional hardening and shear thinning for classes of branched polymers. Their 1997 theoretical paper won a Journal of Rheology Publication Award and has had a major impact.
Liquid Crystal Polymers Ron’s emergence as an authority in this area is the result of his presence in the stimulating surroundings of Bell Laboratories in the 1980s and early 90s. The essence of his work has been to elucidate microstructure in LCPs due to flow. In particular, his studies of arrested tumbling during shear (1990) and the importance of “textured domains” (1991) with Doi are the basis for much of the present state of knowledge of the dependence of LCP structure on imposed flow fields. Here his work also continues, as evidenced by his 1999 paper with Huang and Magda in Journal of Rheology.
Individual Molecule Behavior Ron’s recent collaborations with Chu and others on observations of DNA molecules in shearing fields has, along with related studies by others, been nothing short of astounding. Thanks to these multidisciplinary endeavors, we can now see what macromolecules do in well-defined flow fields. Larson and his coworkers reveal to us the unraveling dynamics in shear and extensional flow that give rise to the macroscopic effects we wish to explain. A key paper in this series is a 1995 publication in Science with Perkins, Smith, and Chu. His 1999 paper on molecular stretching in dilute DNA solutions with Chu’s group, in which Ron did the molecular simulation, was put forward by members of the Publication Award Committee for the 2000 Award, only to be disqualified when Ron was appointed to the Committee.
His list of achievements includes other “firsts” as well, such as his discovery (together with Muller and Shaqfeh) of a new viscoelastic instability in Taylor-Couette flow. Suffice it to say that there is hardly any aspect of the rheology of complex liquids that Ron has not addressed during the past two decades, with important contributions as the result. His recent book, The Structure and Rheology of Complex Fluids (Oxford, 1999), should become at least as influential as his earlier one. Thus one has to wonder if anyone has had greater impact across the spectrum of rheology during the past three or four decades.
In addition to being prolific in research, Ron has been generous with his time and talent. He served effectively as president of the Society and has been an influential mentor to younger rheologists, including Eric Shaqfeh, Lynden Archer, Jaye Magda, David Mead, Susan Muller, Karen Winey, Saad Khan, and Faith Morrison. In short, he is not only deserving of the Bingham Medal for his research accomplishments, but he is the epitome of the type of person whom we want to represent rheology to the public.
If you are moving, please inform Janis Bennett by phone at (516) 576-2403 or by fax at (516) 576-2223. You may also write to her at:
THE SOCIETY OF RHEOLOGY c/o American Institute of Physics Suite 1NO1 2 Huntington Quadrangle Melville, NY 11747 |
75th Annual Meeting
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
October 12-16, 2003
76th Annual Meeting
Lubbock, Texas
February 13-17, 2005
77th Annual Meeting
Vancouver, BC, Canada
October 16-20, 2005
Andy Kraynik receives the Distinguished Service Award in Bethesda (see write up in the January 2002 Bulletin). He is shown here with Past Presidents Goddard, Larson, Mendelson, Armstrong, Wissbrun, and Fuller.
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