All Plenary and Invited speakers are invited to contribute an original research article for peer review to be published in a Dedicated Special Issue of the "Australian Journal of Chemistry - An International Journal for the Chemical Sciences" to the 29th APS in Hobart. Each Plenary and Invited Speaker will be contacted by the journal and the conference chair with regard to the publication procedures. We anticipate that the submission deadline will be on the 1st of April 2007.

PROFESSOR CRAIG HAWKER is one of the world's leading polymer scientists specializing in living free radical polymerization and novel polymer materials synthesis. He has won several prizes including the 2000 Young Scientists Award from IUPAC, the 2001 Carl S. Marvel Award in Creative Polymer Science by the American Chemical Society. In addition to a variety of named lectureships, Prof. Hawker is editor of the Journal of Polymer Science. His research has focused on the interface between organic and polymer chemistry with emphasis on the design, synthesis, and application of well-defined macromolecular structures in biotechnology, microelectronics and surface science. Craig is listed as one of the top 100 most cited chemists worldwide over the last decade.

PROFESSOR KRIS MATYJASZEWSKI is one of the leading polymer scientists in the world having conducted ground breaking research in living free radical polymerization and its applications. Kris has been at Carnegie Mellon University since 1993 and was appointed J. C. Warner Professor of Natural Sciences in 1998, succeeding John A. Pople (1998 Nobel Laureate) in that position, and served as Head of the Department of Chemistry from 1994 to 1998. He was recently inducted as a Fellow of the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials, Science and Engineering. Prof. Matyjaszewski as authored over 500 peer reviewed journal publications and is among the 100 most cited chemists in the world in the last decade.

PROFESSOR FRANK CARUSO ARC Federation Fellow, is Director of the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The University of Melbourne. His research interests are focused on exploiting self-assembly processes to prepare advanced nano- and biomaterials for applications in biotechnology, medicine, pharmaceutics and materials science.
Caruso has published over 145 papers in premier scientific journals, is co-inventor of 14 patents, and is co-founder of Capsulution AG, which focuses on colloidal delivery systems. Caruso has been awarded a number of awards for his scientific achievements: Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship (1997); Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces research excellence award (1998); German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology Biofuture award (1999); Royal Australian Chemical Institute Rennie Memorial Medal/Royal Society of Chemistry - Royal Australian Chemical Institute Exchange Medal (2000/2001); Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship (2002); Australian Academy of Science Le Fèvre Memorial Prize (2005). He is also Associate Editor for the American Chemical Society journal Chemistry of Materials.

PROFESSOR EVA MALMSTRÖM is at the Royal Technical Institute (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden.   Her research interests are focused on the interplay between macromolecular architecture and macroscopic properties and she has contributed significantly to the field of dendritic polymers. In addition, Eva has also contributed to the field of controlled polymerization techniques and was the first one to report on the use of atom transfer radical polymerisation as a tool to surface modify cellulosic substrates.
Eva has over 50 refereed publications in high impact factor journals.

PROFESSOR ANDREW B. HOLMES
Andrew Holmes obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees at the University of Melbourne where he worked with Professor L.M. Jackman. In 1977 he was appointed to a lectureship until he took the position of Director of the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis in 1994. In September 2004 he moved to become Professor of Organic and Polymer Chemistry at Imperial College and in October 2004 was also appointed ARC Federation Fellow and inaugural VESKI Fellow at the Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne and at CSIRO Molecular and Health Technologies. Professor Holmes' research interests span a range of natural and non-natural synthetic targets. He also has an interest in conjugated polymers as a result of an interdisciplinary collaboration with Professor R.H. Friend in the Cavendish Laboratory. This group discovered the first polymeric light emitting diodes which have excited attention around the world and spawned a totally new research area. These materials show great promise as low voltage lightweight light sources, and may have a wide variety of applications in such fields as emergency lighting, static display panels and screens for laptop computers and portable televisions. Further potential applications of conjugated polymers in the fields of field effect transistors and solar cells are also possible.

PROFESSOR TONY RYAN
Prof. Tony Ryan is the ICI Professor of Physical Chemistry, EPSRC Senior Media Fellow and Director of the Sheffield Polymer Centre at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on polymer nanostructures and their exploitation in soft nanotechnology. He is the author of more than 200 papers, eight patents and a book. He has carried out contract research and consultancy for many multinational companies. In 2002 he presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture, Smart Stuff, which was seen by 5 million TV viewers.

 

PROFESSOR HEATHER D. MAYNARD
Prof. Maynard received a B.S. in Chemistry with Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992 and a M.S. in Materials Science in 1995 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology was awarded in the summer of 2000 for research in the group of Robert Grubbs. She then moved to the laboratory of Jeffrey Hubbell at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology(ETH) and University of Zurich, where from 2000-2002 she was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Maynard joined the UCLA faculty as an Assistant Professor in August 2002 as the first Howard Reiss Career Development Chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and as a member of the California Nanosystems Institute. Since arriving at UCLA her research has been recognized, for example, by the Amgen New Faculty Award.

Maynard's interests focus on polymer and materials research with applications in human health and nanotechnology. Her current projects include developing ways to prepare proteinpolymer conjugates and constructing protein nanoarrays on polymer films.

PROFESSOR JOHN TORKELSON
Prof. Torkelson received a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1978 and was awarded a PhD in 1983 by the same institution.

The recipient of many prizes, including the Charles M. A. Stine award Materials Engineering and Science Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering and the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, he currently holds the Walter P. Murphy Professorial Chair of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Northwestern University.

John has authored over 200 peer reviewed research articles with his research interests covering a broad range of physical polymer science from glass formers and their complex, nanoscale, heterogeneous relaxation processes, environmentally benign polymer processing and manufacture (especially solid-state shear pulverization and controlled radical polymerization), ultrathin films, coatings, membranes and nanocomposites, diffusion and diffusion-limited processes in polymers, polymerization reaction engineering, especially concerning free radical polymerization (conventional and controlled), phase behavior, compatibilization and coarsening of blends, associative polymers forming physical gels as well as optical characterization and sensors: fluorescence, nonlinear optics, photochromism and single-molecule microscopy.

PROFESSOR MARKUS BUSCH
Professor Markus Busch leads the group Technical Chemistry III at the TU Darmstadt. He has worked for more than 16 years in the field of high-pressure polymerizations and founded the field of modeling polymer microstructure at Göttingen University in Germany. He spent four years at Computing in Technology with Michael Wulkow being responsible for modeling support and industrial projects. The main research interests of his group in Darmstadt are directed to high pressure chemistry, especially any type of high-pressure ethene polymerizations, polymerization of a variety of monomers under extreme conditions, technical application of these approaches and modeling the polymer micro-structure based on process conditions.

DR MICHELLE L. COOTE
Michelle Coote was awarded a PhD in polymer chemistry from the University of New South Wales in 2000. Her PhD research, which was carried under the supervision of Professor Tom Davis, used a combination of experimental and theoretical techniques to demonstrate that penultimate unit effects were significant in free radical copolymerization. The work was awarded the 2000 Cornforth Medal from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and 2001 IUPAC Prize for Young Scientists. After postdoctoral research in polymer physics with Professor Randal Richards at the University of Durham, UK, she moved to the Research School of Chemistry, The Australian National University, to learn computational chemistry under the direction of Professor Leo Radom.
She was awarded the Rita Cornforth Fellowship in 2003, and is now a fellow and group leader at the Research School of Chemistry, where she uses computational chemistry to solve practical chemical problems, particularly in the polymer field. Her recent contributions include the first chemically accurate predictions of rate coefficients in free radical polymerization, the computer-aided chemical design of a new class of multipurpose RAFT agent, and a new method for incorporating phosphorus atoms into the backbones of polyolefins. She has authored over 60 publications in the fields of computational chemistry, radical chemistry and polymer chemistry, and is a member of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR JUSTIN COOPER-WHITE
Associate Professor Justin Cooper-White's research interests span biomaterials engineering, tissue engineering, biopolymer physics and structure-function, non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, interfacial phenomena> and microfluidics. He received his PhD in rheology and thermodynamics of poly lactide systems in 2000 and currently holds the positions of Associate Professor in Bioengineering in the Division of Chemical Engineering, and Group Leader in the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, at the University of Queensland. He has over 100 research publications and presentations, including 1 book chapter and over 50 refereed journal and conference papers. He is actively involved in national and international Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering, Rheology and Microfluidics societies and conference committees, previously serving as President of the Australian Society of Rheology (2002-2004) and currently serving as President of the Australasian Society of Biomaterials.

DR. DANIEL TATON
Dr. Daniel Taton graduated at the University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris VI where he received his PhD in1994. He subsequently moved to the Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques at the University of Bordeaux, France, where he is Associate Professor since 1995. From 2000 to 2002, he shared his time between Bordeaux and Paris where he was temporarily attached to the research centre of Rhodia. His main research area is the development of original methodologies based on controlled radical or ionic polymerizations for the synthesis of branched polymeric architectures, including stars, dendrimer-like polymers or microgels. He has contributed to more than 60 publications in polymer Science, including book chapters and 7 patents.

PROFESSOR ALAIN BULEON
Professor Alain Buleon is one of the leading scientist of the French National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) in Nantes (France). He received his engineer diploma from National High School of Chemistry, in Mulhouse France, in June 1974. He performed a PhD on cellulose structure and polymorphism in CNRS (1977) and a 2 years post-doctoral stay at the University of Montreal (Canada) about structural features of wood polysaccharides and galactomannans. A. Buleon's research concerns the solid state structure of polysaccharides especially starch and cellulose. He has focused mainly on starch structure and the relationships with susceptibility to enzymatic and acid hydrolysis, phase and polymorphic transitions induced by hydrothermal treatments and complexing properties. His expertise concerns also large scale techniques like X-ray scattering, solid state NMR, calorimetry or cryo-transmission electron microscopy. Presently, A. Buleon is involved in research projects on the formation of starch granules or cell walls during biosynthesis or some related biomimetic systems and interactions between starchy systems with small molecules like lipids, flavours or micro-nutrients. He has also in charge some specific teaching on structural techniques for biopolymers. A Buleon is a member of the Carbohydrate Division at American Association of Cereal Chemistry (AACC) and American Chemical Society (ACS). He is co-author of 120 publications related to polysaccharide structure and properties and more than 110 communications in symposia. He received the French Alsberg Schoch award from AACC in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the science of starch. He is also the coordinator of a national french project entitled "Assembly of the biomacromolecules" involving several groups (140 researchers) from both INRA and the French National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS).

DR SEBASTIEN PERRIER
Dr S Perrier graduated from the Ecole National Superieure de Chimie, Montpellier, France in 1998. He received his PhD in 2001 from the University of Warwick for work undertaken under the supervision of Prof DM Haddleton on copper mediated living radical polymerisation / ATRP. He then moved to Australia, to work with Prof TP Davis on RAFT polymerisation. In 2002, he was appointed as a Lecturer in the Department of Colour and Polymer Chemistry, and was promoted to Senior-Lecturer in August 2005. He is now heading a group of 10 researchers, all working in the area of polymer synthesis and characterisation. His research focuses on the synthesis of polymers to produce materials which properties will be set by the polymeric chains' functionalities and architectures. Research projects cover the understanding of mechanisms and kinetics involve in living radical polymerisation, the development of greener processes for radical polymerisation and the synthesis and characterisation of functional materials and polymeric self-assemblies. Dr Perrier is a member of the European Polymer Journal editorial advisory board, the IRC scientific committee, and is serving as an elected member of the EPSRC's college (British research council). He has been invited to various international conferences and is a regular consultant for international companies. In February 2004, Dr Perrier set up a new spin out company, Designer Polymers Ltd, in order to exploit new IP's generated in his group.

PROFESSOR ROBERT WAYMOUTH
Prof. Robert Waymouth is a Robert Eckles Swain Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University. He completed his Ph.D. work at California Institute of Technology in 1987 in the group of Prof. Robert Grubbs followed by postdoctoral work with Prof. Piero Pino at ETH. He then joined the faculty at Stanford where he has been developing the exciting area of synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry and catalysis for the molecular design of polymers with defined architectures. The novel rational strategies for the synthesis of polyolefins with unusual microstructures developed by his group include the "oscillating" catalyst for the production of elastomeric stereoblock polypropylene and a route to alternating copolymers of ethylene and propylene via catalysts that can access multiple coordination sites that exhibit different kinetic selectivities towards the two monomers. Prof. Waymouth's achievements have been acknowledged by multiple awards including NSF Young Investigator, 1992; A.P. Sloan Fellow, 1993; Alan T. Waterman Award, 1996; and Alexander von Humbold Stiftung Award, 2001.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR GREG RUSSELL
In 1986 Greg Russell graduated from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours and a University Medal in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry. He then went on to obtain his Ph.D. from the same university, his thesis topic being 'Diffusion-Controlled Polymerization Reactions'. In 1991 he accepted an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship and for the next three years he worked at Göttingen University in Germany. Since 1994 he has been a staff member in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand), where he is currently an associate professor. His broad area of research is free-radical polymerization, with his special area of expertise being the kinetics and mechanisms of all such processes. He won the RACI's Rennie Memorial Medal in 1996, and for his research and his services he was awarded an RACI Polymer Division Citation in 2003. He was the Chair of this Division from Dec. 2004 to Feb. 2006, and as such he was the Chair of the 28th APS, held recently in Rotorua, New Zealand. He is also active in IUPAC, including being the Deputy Chair of the long-running and successful Working Party on "Polymerisation kinetics and mechanism".

PROFESSOR HELMUT RITTER
Prof. Helmut Ritter graduated from Marburg University in 1972 and received his doctoral degree from the University of Mainz in 1975 on a topic concerning the synthesis of polymeric drugs. In 1976 Prof. Ritter moved to Bayer AG in Krefeld-Uerdingen and worked in the Central Research and Development Department on pigment modification with polymers, wood protection with oligomeric fungicides and new materials for membrane technology. In 1982 he joined the University of Wuppertal where he received his Habilitation in Organic Chemistry and Polymer Chemistry in 1989. Prof. Ritter joined the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University of Mainz in 1998 and in 2001 he was appointed to a full professorial chair at the University of Düsseldorf, Institute of Organic Chemistry and Macromolecular Chemistry. Prof. Ritter has published over 230 peer reviewed articles and holds numerous patents. His research interests include microwave assisted polymer synthesis, cyclodextrins and enzymes in polymer synthesis, materials for dental technology as well as photosensitive polymers.

PROFESSOR JOACHIM WENDORFF
Prof. Joachim Wendorff studied Physics at the University of Marburg (Germany) and completed a PhD in the area of biopolymers in 1969. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts in the area of liquid crystals, he took up a position in Mainz, where he completed his Habilitation in 1982 on statistical fluctuations. From 1976 to 1991 he was head of the Physics Department of the German Polymer Institute (DKI), before being appoint to a full Professorial Chair in Physical Chemistry and Macromolecular Physics at the Philipps-University Marburg. He has been visiting Professor at a number of European and overseas institutions. Prof. Wendorff has published over 370 peer reviewed research publications and 49 patents, spanning a wide area of research interest including polymers and polymer hybrids in nanotechnology: fibers, tubes and rods, preparation techniques and applications; polymers for medical applications: tissue engineering, surface modification of implants, drug delivery; opto-electronic properties of low molar mass and polymer liquid crystals and functional polymer; structure and properties of polymer blends, polymer interfaces and ordered glasses as well as computer modelling. He is the European editor 'Polymers for Advanced Technologies'.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL BUBACK
Michael Buback is full Professor for Technical and Macromolecular Chemistryat Georg-August-University Goettingen and member of the Goettingen Academyof Sciences. His research interests encompass the entire field of radicalpolymerization kinetics with particular emphasis on fundamental mechanisticstudies based on pulse laser-assisted experiments carried out within wideranges of pressure, temperature, monomer conversion, and chain length. Hehas published over 220 peer-reviewed articles. As Titular Member of IUPACPolymer Division, he chairs the "Subcommittee on modeling ofpolymerization kinetics and processes".