Non-equilibrium Dynamics, from Active Matter to Evolutionary Dynamics

Coordinators: Aparna Baskaran, Valentina Ros, Julien Tailleur, and Francesco Zamponi

Over the past few years, much progress has been made in elucidating the impact of non-equilibrium dynamics on a wide range of systems studied in physics and biology, from active materials to evolutionary landscapes and ecosystems. To account for and unify the increasing corpus of experimental results obtained in these fields, new theoretical tools have been developed, ranging from random-matrix and large-deviation theories to coarse-graining and high-dimensional optimization methods. The goal of this conference is to gather experimentalists and theoreticians who have contributed to these developments and to identify the new research directions that can emerge from their diversity of skills and interest. 

This conference is allowing submissions of the following types:

  • Contributed talks
  • Posters

This conference will have 12 contributed talks. Participants are welcome to submit abstracts. The priority submission deadline for contributed talks is May 6, 2026.

To submit your abstracts, please visit your KITP Herald account After you hit complete registration, you have to click on the conference you've registered in your summary screen to see the option to submit talks.

For posters, all are welcome. We ask that the posters be no larger than 44 inches high x 34 inches wide at the most (it is important to follow these measurements or posters may be turned down due to limited space).

Best regards,

KITP Conferences

2026

Monday, Jun 01, 2026

  • 08:50AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 08:50AM Lars Bildsten (KITP) Welcome
    • 09:00AM Jeff Gore (MIT) TBA
    • 09:45AM Sriram Ramaswamy (IISc) TBA
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 11:00AM Contributed: TBA
    • 11:30AM Contributed: TBA
    • 12:00PM Contributed: TBA
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 02:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 02:00PM Kranthi Mandadapu (UCB / LBNL) Non-equilibrium bio-electrical phase transitions
    • 02:45PM Gautam Reddy (Princeton) Self-organized robustness in mean-field interacting systems
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 04:00PM Ahmad Omar (UCB) TBA
    • 04:45PM Deborah Gordon (Stanford) The dynamics of collective behavior
  • 05:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Monday, Jun 01, 2026

  • 08:50AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 08:50AM Lars Bildsten (KITP) Welcome
    • 09:00AM Jeff Gore (MIT) TBA
    • 09:45AM Sriram Ramaswamy (IISc) TBA
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 11:00AM Contributed: TBA
    • 11:30AM Contributed: TBA
    • 12:00PM Contributed: TBA
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 02:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 02:00PM Kranthi Mandadapu (UCB / LBNL) Non-equilibrium bio-electrical phase transitions
    • 02:45PM Gautam Reddy (Princeton) Self-organized robustness in mean-field interacting systems
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 04:00PM Ahmad Omar (UCB) TBA
    • 04:45PM Deborah Gordon (Stanford) The dynamics of collective behavior
  • 05:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Tuesday, Jun 02, 2026

  • 09:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 09:00AM Andrey Sokolov (ANL) Acoustically Energized Active Liquid Crystal
    • 09:45AM Satyanarayan Majumdar (CNRS) Dynamically Emergent Correlations
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 11:00AM Contributed: TBA
    • 11:30AM Contributed: TBA
    • 12:00PM Contributed: TBA
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 02:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 02:00PM Yariv Kafri (Technion) Why Continuous Symmetries Break More Readily Than Discrete Ones
    • 02:45PM Etienne Fodor (Univ. of Luxembourg) Pulsating active matter: Contraction waves in biological tissues
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 04:00PM Arup Chakraborty (MIT) How the immune system learns
    • 04:45PM Ada Altieri (MSC) TBA
  • 05:30PM RECEPTION Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 06:00PM SPECIAL EVENTS DINNER Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 07:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Wednesday, Jun 03, 2026

  • 09:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 09:00AM Sujit Datta (Caltech) Death and chemotaxis
    • 09:45AM Giulia Pisegna (MPI-DS) Origin and fate of non-reciprocity for mixtures in suspension
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 11:00AM Contributed: TBA
    • 11:30AM Contributed: TBA
    • 12:00PM Contributed: TBA
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 02:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 02:00PM Suriyanarayanan Vaikuntanathan (U. Chicago) Flexible computation, generalization and memory with neuromodulation
    • 02:45PM Vivien Lecomte (LIPHY-Grenoble) TBA
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 04:00PM Daniel Fisher (Stanford) Ecological and Evolutionary Chaos
    • 04:45PM Sunghan Ro (Harvard) Scale-Free Interactions Mediated by Active and Driven Brownian Media
  • 05:30PM RECEPTION Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 06:00PM SPECIAL EVENTS DINNER Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 07:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Thursday, Jun 04, 2026

  • 09:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 09:00AM Guy Bunin (Technion) Reaction-diffusion systems that evolve and adapt
    • 09:45AM Cesare Nardini (CEA Saclay) Nucleation theory and non-local stationary measure in active systems
  • 10:30AM MORNING BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 11:00AM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 11:00AM Contributed: TBA
    • 11:30AM Contributed: TBA
    • 12:00PM Contributed: TBA
  • 12:30PM LUNCH BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 02:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 02:00PM Ned Wingreen (Princeton) B cell affinity maturation - it's all about the nose
    • 02:45PM Kirill Korolev (BU) Phenomenological models of growth and competition in microbial colonies
  • 03:30PM AFTERNOON BREAK Gurley Courtyard

     
  • 04:00PM Fred Kavli Auditorium (Main)

     
    • 04:00PM Tridib Sadhu (TIFR) Active macroscopic fluctuation theory
    • 04:45PM Michael Hagan (Brandeis Univ.) TBA
  • 05:30PM SHUTTLE TO BWSCI *Also available to SB Airport and SB Airbus, Goleta location. (See Registration Desk BEFORE THURSDAY to sign up.) Gurley Courtyard

     

2026

Friday, Jun 05, 2026

No talks scheduled.

2026

Saturday, Jun 06, 2026

No talks scheduled.

2026

Sunday, Jun 07, 2026

No talks scheduled.