Miha Ravnik - Physics/Simulations

Received the 2024 Samsung Prize for Mid-Career Achievement for contributions to physics/simulations of liquid crystals at University of Ljubljana.

Dong Ki Yoon - Materials Chemistry/Experimental

Received the 2024 LG Display Mid-Career Award for advancements in stimuli-responsive liquid crystalline materials for fabricating nano- and microstructures in optical and sensor applications.

2022

Teresa Lopez-Leon - ESPCI Paris

Received the 2022 Samsung Mid-Career Award for pioneering contributions to the physics of liquid crystalline shells.

Shu Yang - University of Pennsylvania

Received the 2022 LG Display Mid-Career Award for creative materials contributions to the fabrication of responsive liquid crystalline matter at surfaces and interfaces.

2020

Alenka Mertelj - Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia

Received the 2020 Mid-Career Award for the discovery of both magnetic and electric polar order in nematic phase and new spatially modulated splay nematic phase that has macroscopic electric polarization. Her scientific achievement will stimulate the research on ferronematics and modulated phases.

Torsten Hegmann - Kent State University, USA

Received the 2020 Mid-Career Award for his pioneering research and leadership in the field of nanomaterial-liquid crystal interfaces, focusing on the surface chemistry of numerous metals, metal oxides and semiconductor nanomaterials. He is one of the leaders in chiral synthesis with a strong future and made outstanding contribution to the synthesis of hybrid and chiral materials.

2018

Ivan I. Smalyukh - University of Colorado, USA

Received the 2018 Mid-Career Award for his pioneering research and continued leadership in the fields of topological nematic colloids and liquid crystal composites. Also highly recognized are his dedicated contributions to the liquid crystal community in the experiments to control soft matters and liquid crystals with a variety of different topologies, shapes, and molecular organization.

2016

Georg H. Mehl - University of Hull, UK

Received the 2016 LG Display Mid-Career Award for his pioneering research and continued leadership at the frontier of chemistry and materials sciences of novel thermotropic liquid crystals, which not only elucidated the fundamental governing principles of mesophases and made a groundbreaking progress into new forms of liquid crystals.

Ingo Dierking - University of Manchester, UK

Received the 2016 Samsung Mid-Career Award for his pioneering research and continued leadership in the area of polymer stabilized liquid crystals and liquid crystal-nanotube hybrid systems. Also highly recognized are his dedicated contributions to the liquid crystal community in a wide range of executive capacity.

2014

Jonathan Selinger - Kent State University, USA

Received the 2014 Samsung Mid-Career Award for his continued and prolific theoretical contributions to the enhancement of physical understanding in wide areas of condensed matter physics ranging from liquid crystals to polymers, and biological systems. His high commands in applying different theoretical methods have promoted numerous fruitful collaborations with experimentalists from diverse soft matter areas including technological applications. It is highly probable that he will continue to play an ever growing leading role to foster interdisciplinary research efforts in the science of soft matter.

Gi-Dong Lee - Dong-A University, South Korea

Received the 2014 LG Display Mid-Career Award for his outstanding contributions to the field of liquid crystal display technology over the past decades that proved to be significant in furthering the industry in ever increasing competitive industry. His research foresight resonates the trends in liquid crystal display technologies and is expected to play a pioneering role in the community.

2012

Corrie Imrie - University of Aberdeen, UK

Received the 2012 LG Display Mid-Career Award for his outstanding and influential work in liquid crystal chemistry, including pioneering work on LC dimers and oligomers, and LC block co-polymers.

Robert Lemieux - Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

Received the 2012 Samsung Mid-Career Award for his stimulating and insightful work in liquid crystal design, synthesis, and characterization, including highly elegant studies on photochemical switching of the spontaneous polarization in FLCs, and of chirality transfer in doped FLCs.

2010

Randall Kamien - University of Pennsylvania, USA

Received the 2010 Samsung Mid-Career Award for exceptional contributions to theoretical physics in the context of soft materials, focusing on liquid crystals and liquid crystalline polymer systems, and virtuoso applications of geometry and topology to the elucidation of the structure of unusual and complex chiral liquid crystalline phases

Timothy Wilkinson - University of Cambridge, UK

Received the 2010 LG Display Mid-Career Award for pioneering work in liquid crystal device engineering, including many aspects of the application of liquid crystals in novel liquid crystal on silicon diffractive modulators for telecommunications, the revolutionary class of microdisplays capable of real time video projection of two- dimensional and three-dimensional holographic images, and application of nanomaterials in liquid crystal on silicon devices.

2008

Sandeep Kumar - Raman Research Institute, India

Received the 2008 LG Display Mid-Career Award for his work on the synthesis of discotic liquid crystals, including the first room temprature system, design of nematic discotic materials, innovative chemistry and the inclusion of nanomaterials in discotic systems.