In June of 2000 the first Symposium on Biologically Inspired Materials was held at the Society for Experimental Mechanics Annual Spring meeting. You can download the agenda which included presentations by Mehmet Sarikaya,Randal Shogren, K.T. Ramesh, Angela M. Belcher, Frank van Swol, T.J.Deming, Peter Ifju, T. Wyrobek and Marc Alper.
I wrote the following press release for the event:
This years conference will include a special symposium to present the experimental mechanics community with recent developments in the area of biologically inspired materials. State-of-the-art materials and technology will be presented by leading chemists, biologists, physicists, and materials scientists. Our goal is to discover how mechanics can play a role in developing biomimetic materials and to evaluate new opportunities for novel sensor and measurement techniques.
We’ll begin the symposium with key-note papers presented by Mehmet Sarikaya of the University of Washington and Paul Calvert of the University of Arizona—both pioneers in the field of biomimetic materials research. They will present examples of what makes biological materials unique and how these properties are being to design functional engineering materials.
Two additional full length technical sessions with nine invited papers will include applications to such topics as natural composites, active polymer gels, micro-electronic materials, biosensors, catalytic biopolymers and biologically inspired aerodynamic design.
A panel discussion has been organized to give members of the experimental community a chance to highlight their research to program managers from ONR, DARPA, NASA, AFOSR and the USDA. Janine Benyus, author of the book `Biomimicry’ will open the panel discussion with a few words about what biomimicry is, and how it is being used from her perspective as a science writer.
We are looking forward to a dynamic and multi-disciplinary event! Please join and explore with us the exciting opportunities in this emerging field.