The Gordon Research Conference (and the affiliated Gordon Research Seminar) on the Science of Adhesion brings together a community with expertise and interests in interfacial and surface phenomena, focusing on the relationship between structure, physics & chemistry, and interfacial mechanical properties. This GRC topic is one of the oldest – running since 1954 – and has been continually replenished by a combination of maintaining itself as the primary home for advances in the fundamental science of adhesion, and actively making connections to new areas of science where surface and interfacial phenomena, primarily adhesion but including friction and contact compliance, are a core concern. The 2015 GRC (and its associate GRS) aims to cover the breadth of the field with an emphasis on two areas of strong current and future interest: adhesion and surface properties of soft/compliant materials, and application of adhesion science to scientific problems in biomaterials ranging in scale from individual molecules to tissues.