Ivan Smalyukh

Ivan I Smalyukh
Born	(1972-07-07) July 7, 1972 (age 52) Lviv, Ukraine
Alma mater	Lviv Polytechnic National University (B.S.,M.S. 1995) Kent State University (Ph.D., 2003)
Known for	Hopfions Heliknotons[18] Toron[19] Topological colloids[20] Topological soliton Transparent aerogels[21] Monoclinic and Orthorhombic Liquid crystals[22] Möbiuson[23] Biaxial ferromagnetic liquid crystal colloids[24] Knotted chiral meta matter paradigm[25]
Awards	PECASE Award (White House)[1] ILCS Mid Career Award[2] ACS Langmuir Lectureship[3] Bessel Research Award[4] APS GSoft Career Award (2016)[5] G.W. Gray Medal[6] Kavli Frontiers Fellow[7] IOP Publishing Paper Award [8] IAS Distinguished Scholar, Tel Aviv Univ., Israel[9] IAS Distinguished Fellowship, Univ. Birmingham[10] Visiting Fellowship, Newton Inst., Cambridge, UK[11] CNRS Chair and Paris Sciences Chair, Paris, France[11] NASA iTech Award[12] NSF & DOE Career Awards[13] Glenn H. Brown ILCS Dissertation Prize[14] UNESCO “Bio-image” travel Fellowship[15] ILCS Multi-media award[16] 2001 David B. Smith Fellowship (Kent State University)[15] 1998 Intl. Science Foundation (G. Soros) Award[15]
Scientific career
Fields	Condensed Matter Physics
Institutions	University of Colorado Boulder WPI-SKCM2[17]
Website	https://www.colorado.edu/soft-matter-physics/

Ivan I. Smalyukh is a physicist working in soft condensed matter physics, especially in the domain of liquid crystals. He is a professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and director of the International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter with headquarters at Hiroshima University.^[26] Smalyukh was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, among many other awards. He and his research group hold the Guinness record for achieving the highest visible-range optical transparency in a material.^[27]

Research

Smalyukh's scientific interests span various aspects of soft condensed matter and optical physics.^[28] This includes the study of laser trapping and imaging techniques, molecular and colloidal self-assembly, and the fundamental properties of materials such as liquid crystals,^[23][29] polymers, and nano-structured substances. Among many of Smalyukh's research interests is the energy efficiency of windows and building envelopes overall. Additionally, the photonic and electro-optic applications of these materials are his group's research interests.

As something that he is widely known for, Smalyukh has studied vortex knots and solitons^[30][31] and knots^[32][33][34] in liquid crystals, contributing to new methods to form microscopic knots in physical fields.

Smalyukh used cellulose nanofibres to develop a transparent and highly thermally insulating aerogel. This work was published in Nature Energy due to the material's potential to enhance the heat lost through windows.^[21][35]

Biography

Smalyukh began his academic journey at Lviv Polytechnic National University in Ukraine, where he completed his Bachelor's and Master of Science degrees in 1994 and 1995, respectively. Furthering his education, he obtained his PhD in Chemical Physics from Kent State University in 2003.^[5]

Following his PhD, Smalyukh held postdoctoral positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Liquid Crystal Institute and AlphaMicron Inc. Between 2004 and 2006, he also worked as a Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Lasers, Photonics, & Biophotonics at SUNY at Buffalo.

In 2007, Smalyukh joined the Department of Physics and Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor.^[11] By 2014, he was an Associate Professor with tenure in the same department. In 2017, he became a tenured full Professor in the Department of Physics. Additionally, Smalyukh holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is also a founding fellow of Renewable Sustainable Energy Institute (a joint institute of CU-Boulder and NREL) and Materials Science Engineering Program.^[11] He directs the Soft Matter Physics Research Group at CU-Boulder.^[11] He is also the Director of the International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter (SKCM2), hosted by Hiroshima University in Japan.^[36]

Throughout his career, Smalyukh has received many awards, including such as the Early Career Award for Soft Matter Research of the American Physical Society in 2016,^[5] Langmuir Lectureship Award of the American Chemical Society in 2021,^[3] and the ICMS Distinguished Scholar award from the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems at Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands in 2022. He also received awards like the Bessel and Glenn Brown Awards, NASA iTech award and Mid-Career Award of International Liquid Crystal Society and the PECASE Award from the Office of Science and Technology of the White House.

Smalyukh has also been actively involved in the scientific community. He has organized and participated in conferences and workshops, such as the 2019 Gordon Research Conference on Liquid Crystals at the University of New England and the Kickoff Symposium on Knotted Chiral Meta Matter in Hiroshima, Japan, in 2023. He has published over 250 peer-refereed articles, including many in Nature and Science.^[15] He has also been a member of editorial boards for several international journals. He is an elected fellow of several international societies, including American Physical Society (APS),^[5] Optica,^[37] and SPIE.^[38]

References

1. "Boulder physics professor receives Presidential Early Career Award". CU Connections. University of Colorado. 9 November 2010.
2. "Mid Career Awardees". The International Liquid Crystal Society.
3. Anderson, Marcus (14 July 2021). "2021 Langmuir Lectureship Award Winners Announced". American Chemical Society.
4. "Smalyukh wins Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award". Materials Science & Engineering Program. University of Colorado at Boulder. Oct 22, 2014.
5. "2016 recipient, Early Career Award for Soft Matter Research". Honors and award winners. American Physical Society (APS).
6. "Gray Medal". British Liquid Crystal Society.
7. "Distinguished Young Scientists Selected to Participate in Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposia". The Kavli Foundation. October 18, 2011.
8. "North America: Top Cited Paper Award". IOP Publishing.
9. "IAS Distinguished Scholars Past Scholars". The Mortimer and Raymond Sackler Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS), Tel Aviv University.
10. "Professor Ivan Smalyukh, Department of Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder". Distinguished Visiting Fellows. University of Birmingham.
11. "Ivan I. Smalyukh". Soft Matter Physics Smalyukh Research Group. University of Colorado at Boulder.
12. "CU Boulder team wins 2018 NASA iTech Energy Cycle competition". College of Engineering & Applied Science. June 25, 2018.
13. "Smalyukh receives Early Career Award from DOE". CU Connections. University of Colorado. May 29, 2013.
14. "Glenn H. Brown Awardees". The International Liquid Crystal Society.
15. "Ivan I. Smalyukh - Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). spot.colorado.edu. University of Colorado at Boulder.
16. "Multimedia Prize". The International Liquid Crystal Society.
17. "People". International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter, Hiroshima University.
18. Tai, Jung-Shen B.; Ivan I., Smalyukh (27 September 2019). "Three-dimensional crystals of adaptive knots" (PDF). Science. 365 (6460): 1449–1453. arXiv:1911.09160. Bibcode:2019Sci...365.1449T. doi:10.1126/science.aay1638. PMID 31604273.
19. Smalyukh, Ivan I.; Lansac, Yves; Clark, Noel A.; Trivedi, Rahul P. (February 2010). "Three-dimensional structure and multistable optical switching of triple-twisted particle-like excitations in anisotropic fluids". Nature Materials. 9 (2): 139–145. Bibcode:2010NatMa...9..139S. doi:10.1038/nmat2592. PMID 19966792.
20. Senyuk, Bohdan; Liu, Qingkun; He, Sailing; Kamien, Randall D.; Kusner, Robert B.; Lubensky, Tom C.; Smalyukh, Ivan I. (10 January 2013). "Topological colloids". Nature. 493 (7431): 200–205. arXiv:1612.08753. Bibcode:2013Natur.493..200S. doi:10.1038/nature11710. PMID 23263182.
21. Abraham, Eldho; Cherpak, Vladyslav; Senyuk, Bohdan; Ten Hove, Jan Bart; Lee, Taewoo; Liu, Qingkun; Smalyukh, Ivan I. (2023). "Highly transparent silanized cellulose aerogels for boosting energy efficiency of glazing in buildings". Nature Energy. 8 (4): 381–396. Bibcode:2023NatEn...8..381A. doi:10.1038/s41560-023-01226-7. S2CID 257588403.
22. Mundoor, Haridas; Wu, Jin-Sheng; Wensink, Henricus H.; Smalyukh, Ivan I. (11 February 2021). "Thermally reconfigurable monoclinic nematic colloidal fluids". Nature. 590 (7845): 268–274. Bibcode:2021Natur.590..268M. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03249-0. PMID 33568825.
23. Zhao, Hanqing; Tai, Jung-Shen B.; Wu, Jin-Sheng; Smalyukh, Ivan I. (2023). "Liquid crystal defect structures with Möbius strip topology". Nature Physics. 19 (3): 451–459. Bibcode:2023NatPh..19..451Z. doi:10.1038/s41567-022-01851-1. S2CID 255896584.
24. Liu, Qingkun; Ackerman, Paul J.; Lubensky, Tom C.; Smalyukh, Ivan I. (September 6, 2016). "Biaxial ferromagnetic liquid crystal colloids". PNAS. 113 (38): 10479–10484. Bibcode:2016PNAS..11310479L. doi:10.1073/pnas.1601235113. PMC 5035882. PMID 27601668.
25. "About". International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter, Hiroshima University.
26. "WPI Centers". Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI).
27. "Most transparent material". Guinness World Records Limited.^{[verification needed]}
28. Meng, Cuiling; Wu, Jin-Sheng; Smalyukh, Ivan I. (2023). "Topological steering of light by nematic vortices and analogy to cosmic strings". Nature Materials. 22 (1): 64–72. Bibcode:2023NatMa..22...64M. doi:10.1038/s41563-022-01414-y. PMID 36456872. S2CID 254150516.
29. "Liquid crystal research, future applications advance". Phys.org. December 27, 2012.
30. Zyga, Lisa Zyga (February 7, 2017). "Never-before-seen topological solitons experimentally realized in liquid crystals". Phys.org.
31. Poy, Guilhem; Hess, Andrew J.; Seracuse, Andrew J.; Paul, Michael; Žumer, Slobodan; Smalyukh, Ivan I. (2022). "Interaction and co-assembly of optical and topological solitons" (PDF). Nature Photonics. 16 (6): 454. Bibcode:2022NaPho..16..454P. doi:10.1038/s41566-022-01002-1. S2CID 249222780.
32. University of Colorado at Boulder (September 29, 2019). "How to Tie Microscopic Knots Within Liquid Crystals". SciTechDaily.
33. "3D knots appear in liquid crystals". Physics World.
34. Crane, Leah (26 September 2019). "A strange new type of crystal is made of fluid tied into knots". New Scientist.
35. Wilkins, Alex (16 March 2023). "Windows filled with see-through wood layer help hold in heat". New Scientist.
36. "Organization and Administration". International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter, Hiroshima University.
37. "Elected Fellows". Optica.
38. "Complete list of SPIE Fellows". SPIE.