"Soft condensed matter” is used to describe a rich variety of classical many-body fluid and material systems that can be used to explore universal concepts in condensed matter. There are many properties that make soft matter an exciting frontier: it is dissipative, disordered, far-from-equilibrium, non-linear, thermal and entropic, slow, observable, often gravity-affected, patterned, non-local, interfacially-elastic, memory-forming and active. Issues inherent in soft matter raise problems that are broadly important in diverse areas of science and require multiple modes of attack: e.g., far-from-equilibrium behavior is confronted in biology, chemistry, geophysics, astrophysics and nuclear physics. Similarly, issues dealing with disorder appear broadly throughout many branches of inquiry wherever rugged energy landscapes are invoked.

As shown in the list below, the vibrant soft-matter community at the University of Chicago stretches over Department and Institute boundaries. We have members from the Chemistry, Computer Science, and Physics Departments and from the Institute for Molecular Engineering and the James Franck Institute. Most of the research is located in the two building adjoining the Kersten Physics Teaching Center: the East Wing of the Gordon Center for Integrative Science and the Eckhardt Research Center. The Computer Science Department is located on the main Quadrangle of the University in Ryerson Laboratory.

Juan de Pablo
Juan de Pablo
Institute for Molecular Engineering
Aaron Dinner
Aaron Dinner
Chemistry/JFI
Todd Dupont
Todd Dupont
Computer Science/JFI
Karl Freed
Karl Freed
Chemistry/JFI
Margaret Gardel
Margaret Gardel
Physics/JFI
William Irvine
William Irvine
Physics/JFI
Heinrich Jaeger
Heinrich Jaeger
Physics/JFI
Ka Yee Lee
Ka Yee Lee
Chemistry/JFI
Binhua Lin
Binhua Lin
CARS/JFI
Arvind Murugan
Arvind Murugan
Physics/JFI
Sid Nagel
Sidney Nagel
Physics/JFI
Paul Nealey
Paul Nealey
Institute for Molecular Engineering
Stuart Rice
Stuart Rice
Chemistry/JFI
Stuart Rowan
Stuart Rowan
Institute for Molecular Engineering
Norbert Scherer
Norbert Scherer
Chemistry/JFI
Steve Sibener
Steve Sibener
Chemistry/JFI
Mary Silber
Mary Silber
Statistics
Matt Tirrell
Matt Tirrell
Institute for Molecular Engineering
Suri Vaikuntanathan
Suri Vaikuntanathan
Chemistry/JFI
Vincenzo Vitelli
Vincenzo Vitelli
Physics/JFI
Tom Witten
Tom Witten
Physics/JFI
Wendy Zhang
Wendy Zhang
Physics/JFI