In nature, soft structures, such as protein assemblies, can organize reversibly into functional and often hierarchical architectures through noncovalent interactions. Encoding this dynamic capability in synthetic materials has remained an elusive goal. Through examples ranging from colloidal to molecular self-assembly I will illustrate the remarkable structures that have been realized experimentally in recent years. Specifically, I will discuss how computational modeling can contribute mechanistic understanding as well as predictive capabilities, despite the inevitable need for coarse-graining.
Professor Erik Luijten studied physics in The Netherlands, where he received his MSc from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Utrecht University (with Prof. Henk van Beijeren) and his PhD (cum laude) from Delft University of Technology in 1997 (with Prof. Henk Blöte). He has worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and the University of Mainz, Germany, with Prof. Kurt Binder and at the Institute for Physical Science and Technology of the University of Maryland, with Prof. Michael E. Fisher and Prof. Athanassios Panagiotopoulos. From 2001 to 2008 he was an assistant professor and later associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and (by courtesy) the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In January 2009 he joined Northwestern University, with appointments in Materials Science and Engineering and Applied Mathematics. As of September 2016, he is chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Professor Luijten's research interests encompass a wide range of topics, with an emphasis on collective behavior in complex fluids and soft condensed-matter systems. Recent work includes colloidal self-assembly, nanoparticles for gene delivery purposes, bacterial self-organization, and data analysis for gravitational-wave detectors. These topics are generally studied via large-scale computer simulations. Professor Luijten received the 2003 IAPWS Helmholtz Award in recognition of "Fundamental and innovative contributions enhancing the state of the art of computer simulations of theoretical models that are directly relevant to the critical and phase behaviour of aqueous systems." He also received an NSF CAREER Award (2004) and a Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2006). In 2013 he was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.