Exploring New Frontiers of Physics

Submitted by vpabba on Mon, 12/01/2025 - 00:18

Current Activities

Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

New mathematical frameworks reveal how stable thoughts emerge from chaotic brain activity

"The mind is what the brain does," as the pioneering artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky once said. So it’d be fantastic to understand at what level of anatomy, or complexity, the brain actually carries out its processing and computation.
This quandary is precisely what captivates Fatih Dinc, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Barbara's Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) and Geometric Intelligence Lab. Read more

Talks Schedule

KAVLI INSTITUTE FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS

TELEPHONE: (805) 893-4111
TELEFAX: (805) 893-2431
speakers@kitp.ucsb.edu

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA, CA 93106-4030
http://www.kitp.ucsb.edu

KITP Program of Scientific Activities

Day of Jul 25, 2026

2026

Saturday, Jul 25, 2026

No talks scheduled.

KAVLI INSTITUTE FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS

TELEPHONE: (805) 893-4111
TELEFAX: (805) 893-2431
speakers@kitp.ucsb.edu

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA, CA 93106-4030
http://www.kitp.ucsb.edu

KITP Program of Scientific Activities

Week of Jul 20 - Jul 26, 2026

2026

Monday, Jul 20, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Adrienne Roeder (Cornell) From Local Growth Fluctuations to Organ-Scale Coordination: Building Robust Plant Organ

Fred Kavli Auditorium 01:30PM

J1 Orientation

Simons Amphitheater 03:30PM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

All participants () Meet and Greet

2026

Tuesday, Jul 21, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Xavier Trepat (IBEC) Understanding and programming tissue shape transitions

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Ertugrul Ozbudak (Northwestern) Two distinct timers control somite segmentation
Mary Lisa Manning (Syracuse) Features of rigidity transitions that depend on geometry (instead of coordination) in morphogenesis

Simons Amphitheater 03:30PM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

All participants () Meet and Greet

2026

Wednesday, Jul 22, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Claude Edouard Hannezo (ISTA) Noise and cooperation in tissue morphogenesis

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Hadrien Oliveri (MPI-PZ) Hydromechanical field theory of plant morphogenesis
Karen Alim (TU Munich) Morphing of vascular networks

2026

Thursday, Jul 23, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Vanessa Barone (Stanford) Few cells, endless forms: echinoderms as a model for morphogenetic variation in early development

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Mattia Serra (UCSD) Positional Information and Information Flows in Dynamic Tissues
Katharina Sonnen (Hubrecht Inst.) Signalling oscillations and waves in somitogenesis

2026

Friday, Jul 24, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Agata Burian (Univ. Silesia) Interplay between organ and vascular patterning in plants

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Aryeh Warmflash (Rice) Signaling dynamics and self-organization in stem-cell models of early development

2026

Saturday, Jul 25, 2026

No talks scheduled.

2026

Sunday, Jul 26, 2026

No talks scheduled.

Seminar Rooms, Commons Room, and Founders' Room are located on the 1st floor of Kohn Hall. Coffee and cookies are served daily in Kohn Hall Commons Room at 3:15 p.m. except on those Tuesdays when there is a Physics Department Colloquium.

KAVLI INSTITUTE FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS

TELEPHONE: (805) 893-4111
TELEFAX: (805) 893-2431
speakers@kitp.ucsb.edu

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA, CA 93106-4030
http://www.kitp.ucsb.edu

KITP Program of Scientific Activities

Week of Jul 27 - Aug 02, 2026

2026

Monday, Jul 27, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Anne Lise Routier Kierzkowska (U. de Montréal) The apical hook paradox: how to make an organ grow while keeping its shape

Simons Amphitheater 10:30AM AI for Quantum Matter

Anna Dawid (Leiden Univ.) Interpretable machine learning for quantum simulators

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Adrian Jacobo (CZ Biohub) How do cells count? Cell number control in a regenerating organ.
Alessandro De Simone (Univ. of Geneva) Signaling dynamics and bone morphogenesis in regenerating zebrafish scales

2026

Tuesday, Jul 28, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Matteo Rauzi (Univ. Côte d'Azur) Composite morphogenesis: how can a tissue fold and extend at the same time

Simons Amphitheater 10:30AM AI for Quantum Matter

Ehsan Khatami (SJSU) Exploring the Fermi-Hubbard Model with AI Tools

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Sidney Shaw (Indiana) Microtubule pattern specification in axially growing plant cells
Allison Kann (Harvard) De novo organ regeneration requires coordinated multi-tissue morphogenesis

2026

Wednesday, Jul 29, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Alexis Maizel (Univ. Heidelberg) On growth, form and polarity in plants

Simons Amphitheater 10:30AM AI for Quantum Matter

Victor Albert (QuICS) Research in the AI age: first experiences

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Danelle Devenport (Princeton) Establishing tissue-scale polarity in an expansive epithelium

2026

Thursday, Jul 30, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Francis Corson (ENS Paris) The geometric basis of morphogenesis

Simons Amphitheater 10:30AM AI for Quantum Matter

Matija Medvidovic (ETH Zurich) Variational and supervised learning of effective electronic potentials

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Dillon Cislo (Rockefeller Univ.) Shaping Fate: Geometric Methods for Cell Fate Transitions, Tissue Patterning, and Morphogenesis
Akankshi Munjal (Duke) Under Pressure: How a developing tissue achieves robust form

Fred Kavli Auditorium 02:00PM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

group discussion (), Frank Jülicher (MPI-PKS), Danelle Devenport (Princeton) Polarity Discussion

2026

Friday, Jul 31, 2026

Fred Kavli Auditorium 09:00AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants
- Manu Prakash (Stanford) Information propagation in structured environments: From biomineral lattices to ecological scale patterns

Fred Kavli Auditorium 10:40AM Geometry and Intercellular Interactions in Morphogenesis of Animals and Plants

Laura Rustarazo Calvo (EMBL Heidelberg) Different roads to tissue rigidity: How mechanical phase transitions impact morphogenesis
Yusuke Mori (Duke) TBA
Susie Wopat (UCSB) Stationary and germ layer–specific tissue flows shape the vertebrate embryo
Matt Lefebvre (UCSB) DV Patterning Directs Morphogenesis During Drosophila Gastrulation