Report from Santa Fe: 96^th SOR Annual Meeting

The 96^th Annual Meeting of the Society of Rheology was held from October 19^th to 23^rd in Santa Fe, NM, in the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. The technical program was curated by program chairs Reza Foudazi and Lilian Hsaio, and the local arrangements chair was Christine Roberts. Valuable support was provided by the local arrangements committee, including Anne Grillet, Andy Kraynik, Josh McConnell, Andrew Schmalzer, and Rekha Rao, with special help from Norah Collins.

Over 400 registrants spanning 30 countries explored the City Different while exchanging ideas and new discoveries in the field of rheology. The diverse crowd included students, academics, industrial rheologists, exhibitors, and members of government laboratories who inspired each other throughout a robust technical program. The return to Santa Fe reprises successful meetings that were held in the same location in 2010 and 1990. Highlights of the meeting include:

• Short Courses. Well-attended virtual and in-person short courses, including Fundamentals of Powder Rheology and Granular Flow, instructed by James Gilchrist and Abhi Singh with help from Thomas O’Connor and Alban Sauret, and Applied Powder Rheology instructed by Abhi Shetty and James Eickhoff.

• Rheology Research Symposium. The RRS took place at the Santa Fe Plaza Hilton from Saturday, Oct 18th to Sunday, Oct 19th. Organized by the Rheology Community Development Committee, this event provided 25 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers with the opportunity to connect with mentors from industry, academia, and government laboratories. Discussions included career paths in rheology, resume writing, and how to make an effective pitch. Students also received a travel grant covering meeting registration and travel expenses.

• Community Engagement. Student members volunteered at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum, bringing squishy curiosities and hands-on demonstrations to introduce museum attendees to rheology fundamentals under the guidance of James Gilchrist.

• Welcome Reception. A wonderful welcome reception was held in the open air of the Santa Fe Convention Center plaza. A string quartet provided entertainment, and refreshments were served, all thanks to a generous gift from Anton Paar.

• Plenary Lectures. The meeting kicked off with a compelling plenary lecture entitled Coupling Rheology and Microfluidics: Viscoelastic instabilities and emergent flow phenomena by Amy Shen. On Wednesday, L Mahadevan delivered the plenary Shaping the future using folding (origami), cutting (kirigami), and printing (coiling).

• Networking. A networking and social session was held at the Santa Fe History Museum, sponsored by TA Instruments/Waters. A lively flute player serenaded the crowd as attendees were able to explore the longest continually inhabited governmental seat in the United States.

• Technical Program Highlights. Special technical sessions were held, including an invited session on Rheology in the Geosciences, organized by Christine Roberts, Sujit Datta, and Sachin Velankar, supported by a Rheology Venture Fund. The Future of Rheology mini-session, organized by student members Elise Chen and Arshiya Bhadu, showcased the work of several promising graduate students and postdocs. Congratulations to Alp Sunol, who was voted to be the first-place winner of this session.

• Student-Industry Event. A student-industrial forum was held to introduce students to career options and mentors in industry and government laboratories. This lunchtime event was sponsored by Dow and AIP.

• Business Meeting. The business meeting unveiled a new website and a new logo to bring the society into the future.
  

• Named Lectures. Antony Beris was honored as the Bingham Medal awardee with a celebratory lecture entitled Rheology Magic. Safa Jamali was the Metzner Award winner, with a plenary lecture entitled Rheoinformatics: Seamlessly integrating theory, computation, and experiment through data-driven rheology. Both lectures were recorded and can be revisited online today by SoR members.

• Banquet. A Bingham medal reception and banquet were held at the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market Pavilion.
  
  • Bingham Medalist Antony Beris and Metzner Awardee Safa Jamali received their awards and were honored by their coworkers.
  • The 2025 JoR publication award was given to Michael Burroughs, Yuanyi Zhang, Abhishek Shetty, Christopher Bates, Matthew Helgeson, and Gary Leal for their manuscript entitled “Flow-Concentration Coupling Determines Features of Nonhomogeneous Flow and Shear Banding in Entangled Polymer Solutions”.
  • Several Society of Rheology fellows were inducted, including Paulo Arratia, Randy Ewoldt, Anke Linder, Joao Maia, Fernando Pinho, Matteo Pasquali, and Patrick Spicer.
  • Outgoing president Jonathan Rothstein recognized incoming president Jeff Morris and president-elect Roger Bonnecaze, and acknowledged the help of past president Anne Grillet. Albert Co and Andrew Kraynik were heartily thanked for decades of service to the website and meeting arrangements, respectively.

• Gallery of Rheology. The Gallery of Rheology was joined for the first time by a Video of Rheology session. Submissions were displayed throughout the week, and judges and popular choice awards were given. Judges’ choice awards were Jellyfish: Oil drainage from porous hydrogels (Goodarzi), Brownian dynamics simulations of chains in shear and extensional flow (Pincus), and Windmills of your polymer (Bhadu). Popular choice awards were Twist the Rainbow (Tang) and Waves, Spirals, and Chaos in Soft Matter! (Sato).

• Poster Session. A vibrant poster session, sponsored by Anton Paar, showcased 88 posters across the field of rheology. Graduate students Hannah Szafraniec, Abby Temple, and Teresiana Guarino, along with postdoc Chenxian Xu, were honored with best poster prizes.