The 48th Annual Condensed Matter and Materials Conference (known as the Wagga meeting) in conjunction with the 6th Asia-Pacific Conference on Condensed Matter Physics (known as AC2MP) was held as a residential conference at the Charles Sturt University campus, Wagga Wagga NSW, from 9th to 13th February. The conference attracted around 110 delegates including trade exhibitors. This included international researchers from twelve countries (Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, India, Hong Kong, China and Bangladesh, UK, Germany, USA, and NZ), plus Australian-based scientists from all states and territories except WA and TAS.
The scientific program for the week encompassed 70 talks including five plenaries, plus 30 posters accompanied by two invigorating poster slam sessions. Topics covered included superconductivity, magnetism, ferroelectrics, 2D, topological, amorphous and nano materials, devices and fabrication, as well as aspects of spectroscopy. On the social side, Wagga-AC2MP 2026 featured activities such as the trivia night, wine tasting, plus excursions to the local Halocell photovoltaic manufacturing facility, Wagga zoo and botanic gardens… and endless rounds of table tennis on the patio (a professor emeritus from Los Alamos National Lab was a particularly strong player). To cap the week off, there was the conference dinner. Dr Zoe Burdikis (an Aussie condensed matter alumna who studied at UWA) from Nature Publishing gave an entertaining after-dinner speech titled The whys and hows of scientific publishing, which prompted a very lively Q&A!
The condensed matter community came together over lunch for a wonderful careers panel discussion, which featured speakers working in academia, scientific instrumentation, vacuum science and technology, photovoltaics, and scientific publishing. Furthermore, around a dozen early-career researchers and students were supported to attend the conference with thanks to the ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellowship, the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies Division of Condensed Matter Physics, and the Australian Academy of Science Theo Murphy Amplify Initiative. The organising committee would like to thank all sponsors and supporters of Wagga-AC2MP 2026: it was a fantastic week of physics and materials science! A more detailed report on this successful event will be published in future editions of Australian Physics and the DCMP Newsletter.
