At the end of December, Ryan and Alex attended ICU-2017 in Honolulu. Ryan gave a talk "Vibrational Dynamics of a Two-dimensional Micro-granular Crystal Studied via Laser-induced Transient Gratings" based on a recently completed study and was awarded a RWB Stephens Prize for a best presentation by a student or recent graduate. Alex gave a talk "Bifurcation of avoided crossings in the dispersion of sound and light in locally resonant media" on the existence of an exceptional point  in the Lorentz oscillator model (see Alex's paper that has just come out).