I attended the International Conference on Next Horizons in Polymers (IUPAC-PSK50) at BEXCO in Busan from September 29 to October 1, 2026. Marking the 50th anniversary of the Polymer Society of Korea, the conference featured a broad program covering contemporary developments in polymer science and engineering, including Polymers for Electronics and Photonics and AI-assisted Design and Simulation of Polymers.
Among the broader set of presentations attended, three keynote talks were particularly notable: Henning Sirringhaus of the University of Cambridge on charge transport and thermoelectric physics in highly doped conjugated polymers; Ji Seon Kim of the University of Oxford on manipulating polarons in organic semiconductors through molecular structure; and Alfredo Alexander-Katz of MIT on designing random copolymers that mimic protein-like behavior. Together, these talks connected molecular design, charge-transport physics, and computational approaches to the development of functional polymer materials.