Vermont Complex Systems Institute

Only six days left! Tutorial submissions close on February 2nd.

Submit here: ic2s2-2026.org/submit-tutor...

Jan Eiẞfeldt will be a keynote speaker for IC2S2 2026!

Jan is an external fellow at @sfiscience.bsky.social and serves as Director, Global Head of Trust & Safety at the Wikimedia Foundation @wikimediafoundation.org, the non-profit hosting Wikipedia, Wikidata, and other free knowledge projects.

YouTube video by Josh Bongard Lecture 1 of Evolutionary Robotics. Logistics, and why make robots?

I'm teaching my evolutionary robotics course again, for those who want to follow along.

Lecture 1: why make robots?

youtu.be/FjNNFRDvQgs?...

Conference update: IC2S2 Virtual Day. While Vermont is an incredibly kind and welcoming state, national policies and federal actions have a real impact on conference access, particularly for people from countries who cannot enter the US due to federally enacted travel bans. 1/6

We are thrilled to announce that @katymilkman.bsky.social will be a keynote speaker at IC2S2 2026.

Milkman is best known for her award-winning research on to identify and overcome barriers that prevent positive behavioral change.

We are excited to welcome @rafaelprietocuriel.bsky.social as a 2026 keynote for IC2S2. His work at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, as well as his work with OECD - OCDE and the The World Bank focuses on mobility, migration and urban dynamics:

2026 tutorial submissions are open!

✔️ Submission deadline: February 2nd, 2026
✔️Acceptance Notification: February 16th, 2026

View the guidelines here:
lnkd.in/eBHVe2tP

There’s a secret language beneath your favorite movies, musicals, and even video games.
We visualized every motif in Wicked, Hamilton, and Les Mis to show how tiny musical ideas can build entire emotional worlds.
🔗: pudding.cool/2025/12/moti...

IC2S2 2026 Speaker announcement displaying the image of Kate Starbird from the University of Washington with a background showing Lake Champlain in Vermont

Keynote Announcement!

We're thrilled to have Kate Starbird from the University of Washington's Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering speak at IC2S2 2026.

Registration is open with submissions opening on 12/15: ic2s2-2026.org

Woohoo! We're excited.

YouTube video by UVM Office of Research IC2S2 2026 | Burlington, Vermont

We're excited to announce that the website and registration for IC2S2 2026 (July 28-31) will launch in early December! The Vermont Complex Systems Institute @vcsi.bsky.social at the University of Vermont will be hosting IC2S2 in 2026: youtube.com/watch?v=p412S4GnPkc&feature=youtu.be

YouTube video by Across the Fence 11/05/25 What Does a Computer Scientist (and Philosopher) think of A.I.?

Core faculty Juniper Lovato recently joined Across the Fence to discuss artificial intelligence. Check out the episode "What Does a Computer Scientist (and Philosopher) think of A.I.?"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5V8...

Eight arms clapping for our champions: "Complex City United" is #1! Our complex systems team of faculty and graduate students won UVM's recreational soccer finals this month:

Congratulations (to us) for making a Valencian-approved paella 🥘 under suboptimal (regular) stove top conditions in honor of our excellent cohort of visiting PhD scholars from Spain:

Group Science: The Open Source Study of Higher-order Networks With XGI | SIAM The CompleX Group Interactions (XGI) software package offers analytical tools, tutorials, and documentation for higher-order network science research.

We wrote a little something! @nwlandry.bsky.social and I talk about how new software to study networks with groups (like @xgi.bsky.social !) can help interdisciplinary collaborations tackle old questions from social ontology and the science of groups.

www.siam.org/publications...

Students and faculty standing outside for a group picture on a fall day in Vermont

It’s fall in Vermont and here we are with @uvmvermont.bsky.social president Dr. Marlene Tromp for the annual social on the green 🍁🍂

New paper dropped!

Led by @thosvarley.bsky.social and Pai Vaibhav, we show that flows of information within a #xenobot resemble flows of information observed in adult human brains.

Thomas provides caveats and context below.

w/ @drmichaellevin.bsky.social, Caitlin Grasso, & Jeantine Lunshof.

🎓 I've joined the PhD in Complex Systems & Data Science at @vcsi.bsky.social to work w/ @lhd.bsky.social & @juniperlov.bsky.social to explore social (complex) dynamics

🔬 Huge thanks to @joanagsa.bsky.social & Lília Perfeito for helping me get ready for this chapter

🚀 Excited for this next step!

Excited about this paper and the interactive story to accompany it. Congrats @lhd.bsky.social @juniperlov.bsky.social @giulioburgio.bsky.social @sfiscience.bsky.social @unioflimerick.bsky.social and nice story telling @jstonge.bsky.social!

Our Physical Review Letter looks at how to get power-law distributions of cascade size without tuning or self-organization to criticality by allowing cascades to improve in quality and jump over gaps or dead-ends

TL;DR complex-stories.uvm.edu/friends-funn...

Paper: journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

PyData Vermont 2025 | Join the Python conference today PyData Vermont 2025 is a two-day in-person conference for data scientists, engineers, and developers, featuring keynotes, talks, and networking at UVM in Burlington, VT, October 21-22.

Working on an interesting data project? Want to enjoy Vermont during leaf peeping season? Submit a talk for PyData Vermont 2025! We will be hosting this event at UVM through our open source program office, VERSO: pydata.org/vermont2025/

Juniper Lovato is a Vermont Complex Systems Institute core faculty member and an outstanding thinker who has been critical to many of our most significant research efforts. Learn about what makes her…... Juniper Lovato is a Vermont Complex Systems Institute core faculty member and an outstanding thinker who has been critical to many of our most significant research efforts. Learn about what makes her ...

We love this research profile on Vermont Complex Systems Institute core faculty @juniperlov.bsky.social 🐙 www.linkedin.com/posts/uvm-vc...

Going Viral: How Ideas, Beliefs, and Innovations Spread in the Digital Age | Computer Science | The University of Vermont It might start as a joke, a belief, or a rumor. At first, it’s easy to dismiss. But then it gains a twist, builds momentum, and spreads like wildfire. What causes some ideas to die out while others ta...

What do cascade dynamics teach us about why things go viral? New research from VCSI faculty and @sfiscience.bsky.social considers the fact that things don’t just spread — they change as they spread, and those changes strengthen or weaken their impact.

Read more here: www.uvm.edu/cems/cs/news...

Revisiting Cont's stylized facts for modern stock markets In 2001, Rama Cont introduced a now-widely used set of ‘stylized facts’ to synthesize empirical studies of financial price changes (returns), resulting in 11 statistical properties common to a larg...

Why do stock markets behave the way they do? New work from our partnership with MITRE upends traditional understanding of stylized facts in markets. Read more here:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

IC2S2'25 Norrköping - YouTube This playlist contains all keynotes from IC2S2'25 in Norrköping, Sweden.

All the keynote recordings are available now, enjoy! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Team from the University of Vermont + External faculty posing for a picture by a river

VCSI executive director announcing location for the conference in 2026, standing on a large stage with colleagues

female scholar presenting a parallel talk, engaging with the audience

PhD student presenting a research poster

Proud of our team's talks and posters at #IC2S2 in Norrköping Sweden - what a great week. We're excited to host next year in Vermont!

Great job Hendrik!

Our team had an amazing week at @ic2s2.bsky.social in Norrköping Sweden and we will post pictures of our posters and talks soon - the big news is that we're so excited to host #IC2S2 in Burlington in 2026! youtu.be/p412S4GnPkc

Newish work from VCSI core and external team members: @lhd.bsky.social @juniperlov.bsky.social @jstonge.bsky.social @jgyou.bsky.social & @nwlandry.bsky.social 👀

UVM Attracts $5.5M from NSF for AI Supercomputer, Underground Robots, Health Science | UVM News | The University of Vermont

Some big news for us and congrats to @chrisdanforth.bsky.social on this NSF award: www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news...