Thanks to the Howard See Student Rheologist Travel Award I had the privilege of attending the 19th International Congress on Rheology (ICR2023) held in Athens, Greece. The International Congress on Rheology (ICR) is a quadrennial “Olympics” for rheologists and is the premier international conference in rheology. It brings together the brightest minds in the field; and facilitates early career rheologists like myself integrating themselves within the wider professional community.
Figure 1: ICR2023 - my first in-person conference
The Conference began with a welcome speech by Professor Gerry Fuller, which notably included a very moving obituary for the many colleagues lost throughout the pandemic. A solemn reminder of how important these meetings are. The technical program that followed included 573 oral presentations as well as a further 293 poster presentations. Research topics presented spannedconstitutive modelling, the rheology of living systems, advancements in rheological techniques, and many more. Experiencing the breadth of different areas of work that encompass the rheological space is something that was hugely beneficial for me personally being in the final year of my PhD studies and on the precipice of beginning my career as a rheologist. Of particular interest for me was the talk given by Ronald Larson "From molecules to processing flows: multi-scale rheological modeling", The Bingham Lecture given by Jeff Morris" Dilatancy and the pressures of dense suspension flows" as well as Gareth McKinley's presentation "Distinguishing thixotropy from viscoelasticity in complex fluids using gaborheometry and parallel superposition rheometry". An added bonus to attending Professor McKinley's talk was experiencing the tidal wave of attendees that flooded in to hear him speak,in what was one of the smallest rooms in the venue - a crowd that would have been unheard of a year previously!
Figure 2: ICR2023
My own talk at ICR2023 was my first opportunity to present my research in person at a prestigious international conference. My presentation, titled "Influence of macromolecular hydrodynamic interactions on the capillary-thinning of liquid bridges", used simulations of liquid bridges to demonstrate the influence of intermolecular interactions on the larger scale dynamical response of polymer solutions. Presenting to an in person audience and receiving multiple questions about my talk was very rewarding in a way that the virtual conferences of the last couple of years have found difficult to capture.
The location was exciting for my first international conference. Athens is the origin of many intellectual and artistic ideas; filled with thousands of years of history and many archaeological landmarks. As such, many evenings after conference sessions had concluded (and the temperature had finally dropped below 40 degrees!) were spent exploring the city. Personal highlights included seeing the Panathenaic Stadium, the host of the first ever Olympic Games; hiking up Mount Lycabettus, the highest hill in the city which provides arguably the best singular view of Athenian architecture; and of course no tour of Athens would be complete without view the Acropolis, the birthplace of modern democracy.
My experience in Athens at ICR2023 could not have been more positive. I would like to thank the ASR for their financial support, as well as the ICR organising committee for putting on such a fantastic conference. I'm already looking forward to the prospect of attending the next ICR in four year's time in China!
Contributed and written by:
Joseph Connel
January 2024
