The materials and technology of the 21st century will be under examination when a major industrial research conference, the 11th annual Polymer Outreach Program symposium, is held at Cornell University May 22 and 23.

The symposium, organized by the Cornell Center for Materials Research, is free and open to all participants. Registration is from 8 to 8:30 a.m., May 22, at 700 Clark Hall.

The conference will attract more than 100 Cornell faculty, students and researchers from such companies as Dow Chemical, Eastman Chemical, Eastman Kodak, GE, IBM and Xerox. Discussions will range from flat panel displays and organic LEDs to nanocomposites and novel polymer applications.

The symposium is intended to strengthen and develop research relationships between university scientists and industry researchers in the rapidly growing field of polymers.

In addition, a short course, Combinatorial Materials Chemistry, Catalysis and Functional Polymers, will be offered May 23 and 24 to many of the symposium participants. Registration for the short course is $300.

A highlight of the conference will be the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology's annual Aggarwal Lecture, to be given this year by Robert Waymouth, the Wilhelm Manchot Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. Waymouth, an expert on polyolefin catalysis, will deliver three lectures: on May 22 at 8:45 a.m., "Designer Poloyolefins: Stereospecific Olefin Polymerization with Well-Defined Catalysts," and on May 23 at 8:30 a.m., "Elastomeric Polypropylene: Structure and Properties of Stereoblock Polypropylene," both in 700 Clark; and on May 24 at 4:40 p.m., "Control of Sequence Distribution in Olefin Copolymerization," in 119 Baker. The lectures, which ar