Charged Matter in Okinawa 2027

The 2027 edition relocates to OIST, co-organized by Prof. Dan Daniel (Droplet and Soft Matter Unit) and Prof. Hiroko Miyahara (Solar-Terrestrial Environment and Climate Unit), as well as Prof. Scott Waitukaitis (ISTA). The relocation aims to extend the conference into the Asia-Pacific research community, addressing a gap in 2025 where there were few Asian participants. Okinawa is well placed to draw Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and broader Asia-Pacific and Australian groups working on tribo-charging, electrospray, granular material, and droplet electrification. CMiO 2027 will feature a dedicated session on the role of aerosol and droplet charging in cloud formation and climate. This session addresses a fundamental but underappreciated link between charging and the global climate system.

Participant numbers and geographic composition. While 2025 attracted ~100 participants, we anticipate a more modest ~50 for 2027 (excluding OIST participants), reflecting realistic travel patterns: Okinawa is a longer, costlier journey for European and American researchers. This is however going to offset by increased Asia-Pacific participation and OIST's population, who can attend without long-haul travel. We have secured agreement from all 10 proposed participants, including 1 NAS member, 1 APS fellow, 1 FRSC fellow, and 1 Max Planck Director.

Scientific excellence. The program spans the breadth of charged matter research: fundamental charge-transfer mechanisms (Butt), charge-driven interfacial chemistry (Zare), and droplet (Daniel), cloud formation (Miyahara), and granular matter electrification (Waitukaitis). The timing is apt. Recently, there is a growing interest in the subject. For example, in the most recent APS March meeting, a new focus session titled “Soft Matter Electrified” drew strong interdisciplinary interest with more than 50 contributed talks.

Interdisciplinarity. The aim of the conference is to bring together widely divergent disciplines—including physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, and earth and climate science—to exchange and explore how electrical charges and charged interactions affect phenomena in all corners of nature. Fundamental open questions to be discussed include the origin of lightning, the nature and cause(s) of triboelectric charging, charge-based biological electrosensing, and the role of charged interactions in planet formation, among more. Though these topics and parent fields share common thematic concerns and conceptual tools, they rarely interact, preventing interdisciplinary acceleration. Charged Matter is the conference that will create the connections for this accelerated discovery to happen.

Relevance for OIST researchers and inter-unit collaboration.

Charged matter intersects with several OIST units beyond Droplet and Soft Matter Unit and Solar-Terrestrial Environment and Climate Unit. Prof. Mahesh Bandi's unit, working on nonlinear and non-equilibrium granular and fluid systems, will be interested; Prof. Amy Shen's unit, working on microfluidics and soft matter rheology, has clear synergies the subject. OIST incoming Assistant Professor Shravan Pradeep, whose research on granular matter could be substantially enriched by exposure to electrostatic and tribo-charging perspectives—granular charging remains one of the most active unresolved areas in the field.

Strategic importance. This conference strengthens the partnership between OIST and ISTA—two small, elite, internationally staffed research universities with closely aligned missions as emerging hubs for interdisciplinary science, both founding members of the BRIDGE Network. A successful second edition at OIST, co-organized with ISTA's Prof. Waitukaitis, lays groundwork for future series.

Moreover, the event will highly raise the visibility of OIST as a venue for boundary-breaking, interdisciplinary research. This extends not only to distinguished invited professors, but also to the students and postdocs that will accompany them. The conference will put OIST on the map as a research destination for their PhD, postdoctoral, or faculty applications.  

*OIST members are welcome to attend all scientific sessions. Meals are closed sessions for registered participants only.

Workshop website: https://www.oist.jp/conference/charged-matter-okinawa-2027

OIST is deeply committed to the advancement of women in science, in Japan and worldwide. Women are strongly encouraged to apply.