News + Events

The European Social Simulation Association (ESSA) honored SFI External Professor Joshua Epstein (New York University) with its most prestigious award — The Rosaria Conte Award for Outstanding Social Simulation. A pioneer and world leader in agent-based modeling, Epstein was among the first scientists to use bottom-up simulation to replicate the statistical macrostructures seen in complex social systems. 

September 2020 brought a landmark discovery for astrobiology — the detection of a chemical compound in the clouds of Venus that is often associated with the presence of life. Though no SFI researchers were on the team that published the recent discovery of phosphine, one SFI scientist first forecast the possibility of Venusian life more than 50 years earlier.

In their book, Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World, former SFI External Professor Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West unpack the ease with which misinformation has leached into every corner of society and call for a healthy dose of skepticism in science, media, and everyday life.

This year, the annual postdocs’ gathering is a retreat not from SFI’s day-to-day calm, but to a recreation of it. Sheltered by strict safety protocols, the 'Pandemic Pod' is taking place in person.

Susan Carter, SFI’s Director of Research Development, was named a Charter Fellow by the National Organization of Research Development Professionals.

This week, Jennifer Dunne was named a Fellow of the Network Science Society.

This week, Sonia Kéfi received the Erdős–Rényi Prize for young scientists from the Network Science Society.

Ecology is traditionally a data-poor discipline, but tiny microbial worlds offer the quantity of data needed to solve universal questions about abundance and diversity. New research by Jacopo Grilli reveals the fundamental relationship between the environment and the species present in a microbial community and can be used as a starting point for investigating bigger systems.

Using data from humans and other mammals, a team of scientists including researchers from the Santa Fe Institute has developed one of the first quantitative models that explains why sleep times across species and during development decrease as brains get bigger. Crucially, the model identifies a sharp transition at around 2.4 years of age, where sleep patterns change in humans as the primary purpose of sleep shifts from reorganization to repair.

SFI External Professor Raissa D’Souza has joined the Board of Reviewing Editors at Science magazine, one of the world’s top peer-reviewed journals.

Recently, a number of SFI scientists have brought new research frames to bear on the origin of life puzzle. Their work, and that of other leading researchers in the field, is highlighted in a recent Aeon essay.

SFI's Artemy Kolchinsky and David Wolpert present their work exploring the thermodynamics of computation within the context of Turing machines.

In an essay for Aeon magazine, SFI Professor Jessica Flack and SFI Davis Professor Melanie Mitchell describe how the COVID-19 pandemic prompts us to revisit the ways that complex systems retain stability in the biological world. By learning from biological systems, we can begin to shore up the vulnerability inherent in the complex systems that undergird human life.

Leaders of sustainability organizations report on valuable lessons they’ve distilled from their own experiences about successful leadership.

SFI's Jessica Flack, Scott Page, and their fellow founding editors launch new transdisciplinary journal: Collective Intelligence.

First annual remote meeting aims to integrate complex systems and stochastic thermodynamics.

If voters gravitate toward the center of the political spectrum, why are the parties drifting farther apart? A new model by SFI's Vicky Chuqiao Yang and her collaborators reveals a mechanism for increased polarization in U.S. politics, guided by the idea of "satisficing"-- that people will settle for a candidate who is "good enough."

A new collection of essays, co-curated by SFI External Professor Andy Dobson, consider unanswered questions about scaling, population biology, ecosystems and communities, collective behavior, and conservation, among other themes.

SFI celebrates recent achievements of members of our research network. 

SFI's research network includes renowned scholars affiliated with universities and institutions from around the world. This year, SFI welcomes four new external professors.