Vermont Complex Systems Institute

Science Daily coverage of recent work from @peterdodds.bsky.social: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

Every year we celebrate octopus 🐙 week , the mid-point in the busy fall semester. It's a week of slowing down, enjoying each other's company, catching the end of leaf peeping season, getting vitamin D before winter. Thanks to postdoc Julia Z for organizing a crafting session. Beautiful creations!

VCSI Director @peterdodds.bsky.social was recently featured on Veritasium along with Steven Strogatz and Brian Enquist, discussing scaling laws and one (unfortunate) elephant. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL9L...

MassMutual Fellow and Computational Story Lab PhD student Calla Beauregard discussing gender stereotypes in film at @ic2s2.bsky.social : www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

@chrisdanforth.bsky.social sharing a lightning talk on LEMURS at @ic2s2.bsky.social ⚡ www.linkedin.com/posts/uvm-vc...

@lhd.bsky.social talks witches at @ic2s2.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/posts/uvm-vc...

Voting is open! Select your favorite #ic2s2 posters, lightning talks, and parallel talks. Voting will be open until our closing session on Friday when winners will be announced. complexforms.uvm.edu/ic2s2/

@rafaelprietocuriel.bsky.social presents our morning Keynote: www.linkedin.com/posts/ic2s2_...

💯. Lightning talk by @vcsi.bsky.social AI and Computational Social Science Postdoctoral Fellow Julia Zimmerman

Arden Olsko, a PhD student in the Glass Brain Lab working on the SOCKS project, presents “Quantifying Language Used in Cross-Partisan Conversations: Does Geography Matter?” - super cool to see @vcsi.bsky.social computational story lab tools used for this project!

@juniperlov.bsky.social presents “A Taste of Privacy: How Context, Identity, and Lived Experience Shape Information Sharing Preferences” in the Social Good & Ethics parallel session at #IC2S2

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Aviral Chawla studies LLMs' abilities to learn multitudes of preferences #IC2S2 @ic2s2.bsky.social

Tomorrow evening after our welcome reception, we invite conference attendees to join us for a bike ride to North Beach. We'll be leaving from ECHO museum at 6:30pm.

Our amazing @vcsi.bsky.social crew has been working hard to welcome you to Vermont! Our team designed a hand-drawn program zine (drawn by VCSI executive director @alexawoodward.bsky.social) and we folded 600 of them with love. See you soon!

www.linkedin.com/posts/ic2s2_...

We're incredibly proud that so many VCSI affiliated researchers are presenting their work at @ic2s2.bsky.social next week! Stop by and say hello! vermontcomplexsystems.org/events/

www.linkedin.com/posts/our-ma...

😍 🐙 👀 www.linkedin.com/posts/robert...

Congratulations to Laurent Hébert-Dufresne @lhd.bsky.social, UVM Professor of Computer Science and core faculty member of the Vermont Complex Systems Institute, on receiving the 2026 Young Scientist Award for Socio and Econophysics from the German Physical Society! www.uvm.edu/cems/cs/news...

Abstract submissions close on March 3rd! We are also extending a ✨ call for mentored reviewers ✨ if you advise excellent graduate or postdoctoral researchers you are welcome to recommend them to review for IC2S2 2026. Email IC2S2@uvm.edu to nominate mentored reviewers (or faculty colleagues)

We're excited to welcome @begus.bsky.social as a keynote speaker for IC2S2 2026!

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.

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...

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.

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

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: