Recent Events

1.   Recent Conference Participations • Chathuranga Prageeth Rajapaksha, Pushpa Paudel , P M Sineth Gayashan Kodikara , Drona Dahal , Chenrun Feng, Vikash Kaphle, Bjorn Lussem, Antal Istvan Jákli, “Steady-State and Transient Behavior of Ionic Liquid Crystal Elastomers Based Organic Electrochemical Transistors”, APS March Meeting, 2021 (Virtual), L04.00009 • Kelum Perera Ahlam, Nemati, Elizabeth K Mann, Torsten Hegmann, Antal Istvan Jakli, “Liquid crystals microlens array using chiral ligand capped Au nanoparticles”, APS March Meeting, 2021 (Virtual), R05.00001 • Chenrun Feng, Jun Feng, Rony Saha, Yuki Arakawa, James Gleeson, Samuel N Sprunt, Chenhui Zhu, Antal Istvan Jakli, “Manipulation of the nanoscale heliconical structure of a twist-bend nematic material with polarized purple light” APS March Meeting, 2021 (Virtual), R05.00002 • Rony Saha, Chenrun Feng,  Christopher Welch, Georg H. Mehl, Jun Feng,  Chenhui Zhu,  James Gleeson, • Samuel N Sprunt,  Antal Istvan Jakli, “The interplay between spatial and heliconical bond order in twist-bend nematic materials”, APS March Meeting, 2021 (Virtual), R05.00011 • Chathuranga Prageeth Hemantha Rajapaksha: Gordon Research Conference (July 7 - July 12, 2019) • Zoltan Karaszi visited Wigner Research Centre in Budapest, Hungary (July 1 - July 26, 2019) ~ link • Antal Jakli visited Wigner Research Centre in Budapes, Hungary (June 26 - July 31, 2019) ~ link • Jenieve Cumberland has participated in the NSF U. Akron I-Corps program (February - April, 2019) • Haumed Rahmani has participated in the NSF U. Akron I-Corps program (June - July, 2019) • Matthew Murachver is in Intership at Nasa Glenn Center (January 1 - December 31, 2019) • Chenrun Feng has received a Doctoral Fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (October 1 - September 30, 2020) ~ link • Hemantha Rajapaksha, Kelum Perera, Chenrun Feng and Rony Saha presented in APS 2021 March meeting in virtual APS March meeting • Antal Jákli had invited virtual talk in the International Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Conference,  Ljubliana, Slovenia, September 7, 2021 • Hemantha Rajapaksha, Kelum Perera, Chenrun Feng, Rony Saha Pushpa Paudel presented in APS March Meeting, 2022 in Chichago • Kelum Perera, Rony Saha, Md Sakhawat Hossain, Md Mostafa, Alex Adaka, Ronan Waroquet and Alex Adaka presented in APS March meeting 2023 in Las Vegas. • Antal Jákli presented in the 16th ECLC, Rende, Italy, July 12. 2023. 2. Recent Invited Talks at Conferences • 17th International Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Conference, Boulder, Colorado (August 4-7, 2019) • European Liquid Crystal Conference 2019: Wroclaw, Poland (June 30 -July 5, 2019) • 16th European Conference on Liquid Crystals, Rende, Italy, July 10-14, 2023 • AMLCI Materials Day, April 29, 2023 • 29th Indian National Liquid Crystal Conference, Bangalore, India, December 8, 2022 • 22nd International Liquid Crystal Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, July 26, 2022 • International Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Conference, Ljubliana, Slovenia, September 7, 2021 • Alfred Saupe Prize Lecture, 37th German Liquid Crystal Conference, Magdeburg, Germany, 2021 3. Recent Awards • Jákli, Alfred Saupe Prize of the German Liquid Crystal Society (2021) • Chenrun Feng, Alfred Saupe Fellowship, For outstanding graduate students working on physics or material sciences of liquid crystals (2021) ~ link • Hemantha Prageeth Rajapaksha, James Fergason Fellowship, For outstanding graduate students working on applied research using liquid crystals. (2021) ~ link • Tech Transfer Grant: Liquid crystal Clad fibers for wearable responsive textiles (2020) • Zoltan Karaszi, Awardee of the KSU GSS International Travel Award (2020) ~ link • Jákli, President’s Faculty Excellence Award of Kent State University (2018) • I-Corps – Fast Optical Switch (2019) • NSF-DMR: Phase Behavior and Physical Properties of Thermotropic and • Lyotropic Liquid Crystal Oligomers Jákli: Co-PI (July 15, 2019 - June 30, 2022) 4. Colloquia and Seminars • A. Jakli:  Alfred Saupe Prize Lecture, 37th German Liquid Crystal Conference, Magdeburg, Germany (2021) • A. Jakli: SPIE 11472, Liquid Crystals XXIV, 24 August 2020; Virtual Conference (2020) • Antal Jákli gave colloquia in Reality Lab at Meta, February 7, 2022 and at School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering, Akron University in January 29. 2021