1. Collaborative Research Programs: Academic Sector Howard University (D. Raghavan) A comprehensive, research-oriented, historically black private university Mount Holyoke College (Wei Chen and Kathy Aidala) Nation's oldest continuing institution of higher education for women, with nationally recognized excellence in science Smith College (Nalini Easwar) The first women's college in the United States to grant its own undergraduate degree in engineering University of California at Riverside (Mihri Ozkan and Cengiz Ozkan) The most ethnically diverse UC campus; accredited as a Postsecondary Minority Institution The UMass MRSEC outreach partners combine research excellence with diverse settings Todd Emrick, University of Massachusetts Amherst, DMR 0820506

2. Force and Velocity Fluctuations in Dense Gravity Driven Granular Flows Nalini Easwar: Smith College, Northampton MA Shiho Iwanaga ’99 (Ph.D. in Chemistry at U Southern California) Emily Longhi ’00 (Ph.D. in Physics at Duke University) Kate Byers ’02 (High School Physics teacher) Efrosyni Seitaridou ’02 (Ph.D. CalTech, Assistant Professor, Emory) Sonia Dragulin ‘03 (Ph.D. Chemistry at U Wisconsin) Ellen Keene ’05 (Ph.D. Materials Science at Cornell) Emily Gardel ’06 (Graduate Program in Biophysics at Harvard) Alisa Stratulat ’08 (Graduate Program at Oxford) Kelsey Hattam ’09 (Graduate Program at Emory University) Maya Lewin Berlin’13 Brenda Carballo ‘13 A decade of MRSEC support for female undergraduates in science Two problems. 2D and 3D flow geometries experience different collisional and frictional flows, and velocity gradients in the flow direction. The distribution of force fluctuations has an exponential tail at large force in collisional flows, but falls off slower than an exponential in frictional flows. Clear signatures in the force distribution of the approach to jamming remains to be understood. However, the temporal characteristics of force fluctuations show the approach to jamming. Todd Emrick, University of Massachusetts Amherst, DMR 0820506

3. Innovative outreach activities SciTech Cafe A forum for presenting science in an accessible manner to the general public. Monthly, inclusive, family-friendly and interactive talks on interesting topics in science of societal relevance Nation's oldest continuing institution of higher education for women, with nationally recognized excellence in science Katherine Aidala, Mount Holyoke College PECASE and NSF-CAREER awardee Scanning and Probing at the Nanoscale Insert image / science here http://www.scitechcafe.org/#!about/cjg9 Todd Emrick, University of Massachusetts Amherst, DMR 0820506