Alfons Weber program director-- DMR condensed matter physics <aweber@nsf.gov>
cc:
G. Bruce Taggart program director- DMR materials theory <gtaggart@nsf.gov>

Henry N. Blount head of Office of Multidisciplinary Activities- physical sci. div. <hblount@nsf.gov> 
 
Terrence W. Rettig program director- special programs- physics div <trettig@nsf.gov>


Nigel Adams Program Director physical chemistry <nadams@nsf.gov>

Kamal Shukla Program Director- biomolecular structure and function <kshukla@nsf.gov>

Priscilla P. Nelson director- Div.  of Civil and Mechanical Structures- ENG <pnelson@nsf.gov>
 armand- 
Evelyn Jordan <evelyn@grcmail.grc.uri.edu>

Dear Dr. Weber -- I attended David Grier's Gordon Conference on Condensed Matter Physics, partly supported by your office.  Now I'm the chair of a similar Gordon conference to be held next summer: the Gordon Conference on Complex Fluids.  There is substantial overlap in subject matter between our conference and Grier's.  The theme of our meeting is "Soft Interfaces under Stress".  Our aim is to assemble phenomena from soft matter physics, physical chemistry, biology and mechanical engineering in which stress along an interface leads to the spontaneous creation of structure.  Examples are red blood cells with sickle-cell anemia, Schallamach waves at the surface of sheared rubber, and multilamellar myelin structures that result from stressed lamellar surfactant solutions.  We also aim to encompass macroscopic phenomena like the crumpling of elastic membranes and electrospray of droplets.  This conference has traditionally been international, alternating between Europe and America.  

We've attracted an exciting list of speakers and sketched out a conference program.  Our web site http://jfi.uchicago.edu/~tten/Gordon00/
gives information about these things.

We seek NSF support for our conference.  Would your office be interested in co-sponsoring our conference?  It may not be an obvious fit to your own program.  Yet it seems to fit well with the mission of the DMR and also with physics, Chemistry, cell biology, civil engineering and the office of international programs.  It seems likely that the French CNRS will provide some support.  

If you think the NSF might be interested in supporting our meeting but your own program can't fund it, I'd appreciate your advice about who to contact next.  Many thanks... Tom Witten.