Santa Fe Institute
@sfiscience.bsky.social
The premier research center for #ComplexSystems #science.
santafe.edu
linktr.ee/sfiscience
santafe.edu
linktr.ee/sfiscience
Apply now for SFI’s 2026 CSSS Journalism Fellowship (June 9–July 8). Each year, two accomplished journalists join our summer school program for a deep dive into complexity science. Stipend, housing, and travel covered.
Applications open until Feb. 4, 2026.
Apply: www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
Applications open until Feb. 4, 2026.
Apply: www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
November 14, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Apply now for SFI’s 2026 CSSS Journalism Fellowship (June 9–July 8). Each year, two accomplished journalists join our summer school program for a deep dive into complexity science. Stipend, housing, and travel covered.
Applications open until Feb. 4, 2026.
Apply: www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
Applications open until Feb. 4, 2026.
Apply: www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
The latest issue of SFI's monthly e-newsletter is now available.
Catch up on recent research, events, and news from the Santa Fe Institute, and sign up to get the next edition in your inbox.
Read it here: mailchi.mp/santafe/sfi-...
Catch up on recent research, events, and news from the Santa Fe Institute, and sign up to get the next edition in your inbox.
Read it here: mailchi.mp/santafe/sfi-...
November 10, 2025 at 6:31 PM
The latest issue of SFI's monthly e-newsletter is now available.
Catch up on recent research, events, and news from the Santa Fe Institute, and sign up to get the next edition in your inbox.
Read it here: mailchi.mp/santafe/sfi-...
Catch up on recent research, events, and news from the Santa Fe Institute, and sign up to get the next edition in your inbox.
Read it here: mailchi.mp/santafe/sfi-...
SFI Resident Professor Sam Bowles has co-authored a new book of problem sets and solutions based on the new microeconomics, with applications to inequality, climate change, and other pressing issues in today’s world. Available now.
Test your knowledge of #inequality. CORE author Sam Bowles has co-authored a new book of problem sets packed with real-world data. Sam explains how the book helps students learn more about the things they care about.
openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...
openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...
November 6, 2025 at 8:10 PM
SFI Resident Professor Sam Bowles has co-authored a new book of problem sets and solutions based on the new microeconomics, with applications to inequality, climate change, and other pressing issues in today’s world. Available now.
SFI welcomes Program Postdoctoral Fellow Shuhao Fu.
Artificial-intelligence systems have made remarkable progress in recent years, but they still struggle with the kind of flexible, relational reasoning that comes naturally to humans. Fu studies how to bridge that gap.
Artificial-intelligence systems have made remarkable progress in recent years, but they still struggle with the kind of flexible, relational reasoning that comes naturally to humans. Fu studies how to bridge that gap.
SFI welcomes Program Postdoctoral Fellow Shuhao Fu
Artificial-intelligence systems have made remarkable progress in recent years, but they still struggle with the kind of flexible, relational reasoning that comes naturally to humans. Program Postdoctoral Fellow Shuhao Fu studies how to bridge that gap.
www.santafe.edu
October 31, 2025 at 3:07 PM
SFI welcomes Program Postdoctoral Fellow Shuhao Fu.
Artificial-intelligence systems have made remarkable progress in recent years, but they still struggle with the kind of flexible, relational reasoning that comes naturally to humans. Fu studies how to bridge that gap.
Artificial-intelligence systems have made remarkable progress in recent years, but they still struggle with the kind of flexible, relational reasoning that comes naturally to humans. Fu studies how to bridge that gap.
What if one model could realistically predict the economy of an entire country? The entire world? A month-long working group, co-organized by SFI External Professor @doynefarmer.bsky.social, made the case that agent-based models may bring this vision to life:
Agent-based models move into the economic mainstream
In the 1980s and ’90s, SFI played laboratory to a promising new method known as agent-based modeling. In ensuing decades, agent-based models (ABMs) proliferated across many fields, including economics...
www.santafe.edu
October 28, 2025 at 5:48 PM
What if one model could realistically predict the economy of an entire country? The entire world? A month-long working group, co-organized by SFI External Professor @doynefarmer.bsky.social, made the case that agent-based models may bring this vision to life:
SFI welcomes Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Maike Morrison.
@maikemorrison.bsky.social develops mathematical tools to quantify biological variation. She draws on ecology, population genetics, and information theory to study population structure, diversity, and stability.
@maikemorrison.bsky.social develops mathematical tools to quantify biological variation. She draws on ecology, population genetics, and information theory to study population structure, diversity, and stability.
SFI welcomes Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Maike Morrison
Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Maike Morrison builds mathematical tools to quantify and compare biological variation. Her work draws on ecology, population genetics, and information theory to study th...
www.santafe.edu
October 24, 2025 at 6:41 PM
SFI welcomes Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Maike Morrison.
@maikemorrison.bsky.social develops mathematical tools to quantify biological variation. She draws on ecology, population genetics, and information theory to study population structure, diversity, and stability.
@maikemorrison.bsky.social develops mathematical tools to quantify biological variation. She draws on ecology, population genetics, and information theory to study population structure, diversity, and stability.
Congratulations to SFI Professor Melanie Mitchell (@melaniemitchell.bsky.social), a winner of the 2025 National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications. Mitchell is recognized for her writing and podcasts on AI and how we think about intelligence.
Melanie Mitchell receives award for science communication
SFI Resident Professor Melanie Mitchell has received a 2025 Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Th...
www.santafe.edu
October 23, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Congratulations to SFI Professor Melanie Mitchell (@melaniemitchell.bsky.social), a winner of the 2025 National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications. Mitchell is recognized for her writing and podcasts on AI and how we think about intelligence.
Do people always act in their best interest? A new working group meeting explores how context shapes people's decisions—and how seemingly irrational choices are rational in certain contexts. These insights could one day help create policies that enable better decision-making.
Why context matters in decision-making
Why do people make short-term decisions that may not be in their long-term interest? An October 22-25 working group takes stock of a new body of evidence from experiments and observations to explore d...
www.santafe.edu
October 23, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Do people always act in their best interest? A new working group meeting explores how context shapes people's decisions—and how seemingly irrational choices are rational in certain contexts. These insights could one day help create policies that enable better decision-making.
Catch up on our most recent Community Lecture: “Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?” with Alison Gopnik.
This was the last of six community lectures for 2025, and all are available to watch on SFI’s YouTube channel.
Watch here:
This was the last of six community lectures for 2025, and all are available to watch on SFI’s YouTube channel.
Watch here:
Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an Al as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?
YouTube video by Santa Fe Institute
www.youtube.com
October 22, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Catch up on our most recent Community Lecture: “Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?” with Alison Gopnik.
This was the last of six community lectures for 2025, and all are available to watch on SFI’s YouTube channel.
Watch here:
This was the last of six community lectures for 2025, and all are available to watch on SFI’s YouTube channel.
Watch here:
Tomorrow: the final event in SFI’s 2025 Community Lecture Series!
Join us for Alison Gopnik's lecture, “Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?” — 7:30 pm at The Lensic.
Free tickets: lensic.org/events
Livestream: youtube.com/@SFIScience
Join us for Alison Gopnik's lecture, “Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?” — 7:30 pm at The Lensic.
Free tickets: lensic.org/events
Livestream: youtube.com/@SFIScience
Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an Al as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?
There is no such thing as general intelligence — artificial or natural — argues Alison Gopnik. Instead, there are multiple intelligences, each with its own trade-offs. Three different types of cogniti...
www.santafe.edu
October 20, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Tomorrow: the final event in SFI’s 2025 Community Lecture Series!
Join us for Alison Gopnik's lecture, “Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?” — 7:30 pm at The Lensic.
Free tickets: lensic.org/events
Livestream: youtube.com/@SFIScience
Join us for Alison Gopnik's lecture, “Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?” — 7:30 pm at The Lensic.
Free tickets: lensic.org/events
Livestream: youtube.com/@SFIScience
In this SFI Seminar, biographer Alec Nevala-Lee explores the life of physicist and Nobel laureate Luis W. Alvarez, whose work spanned the Manhattan Project, investigating the JFK assassination, and developing the asteroid theory of dinosaur extinction.
youtu.be/F4KGgtxNF58
youtu.be/F4KGgtxNF58
October 17, 2025 at 10:18 PM
In this SFI Seminar, biographer Alec Nevala-Lee explores the life of physicist and Nobel laureate Luis W. Alvarez, whose work spanned the Manhattan Project, investigating the JFK assassination, and developing the asteroid theory of dinosaur extinction.
youtu.be/F4KGgtxNF58
youtu.be/F4KGgtxNF58
SFI's Postdocs in Complexity Global Conference brings together early-career researchers from around the world. Held September 16–19, this year’s meeting drew 53 scholars for four days of collaboration, networking, and advancing research projects.
www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
October 16, 2025 at 7:34 PM
SFI's Postdocs in Complexity Global Conference brings together early-career researchers from around the world. Held September 16–19, this year’s meeting drew 53 scholars for four days of collaboration, networking, and advancing research projects.
www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
Global markets are complex systems, shaped by feedback loops, shocks, and adaptive behavior, rarely following textbook rules. A special issue on complexity economics in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization explores how this approach offers tools for today’s challenges.
santafe.edu/news
santafe.edu/news
October 15, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Global markets are complex systems, shaped by feedback loops, shocks, and adaptive behavior, rarely following textbook rules. A special issue on complexity economics in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization explores how this approach offers tools for today’s challenges.
santafe.edu/news
santafe.edu/news
Stochastic modeling provides new ways to tackle pressing medical problems. In this seminar, Sean Lawley (University of Utah) illustrates this with two examples: using ovarian tissue cryopreservation to delay menopause, and analyzing how missed medication doses affect treatment.
youtu.be/ec1jKmPskXI
youtu.be/ec1jKmPskXI
October 14, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Stochastic modeling provides new ways to tackle pressing medical problems. In this seminar, Sean Lawley (University of Utah) illustrates this with two examples: using ovarian tissue cryopreservation to delay menopause, and analyzing how missed medication doses affect treatment.
youtu.be/ec1jKmPskXI
youtu.be/ec1jKmPskXI
In this SFI Seminar, Mahesh Bandi (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) presents an analysis of five years of data from an 80-turbine farm, revealing universal, collective, and nonlinear correlations that shape wind power fluctuations.
youtu.be/i2WumlT3Mm0
youtu.be/i2WumlT3Mm0
October 13, 2025 at 8:08 PM
In this SFI Seminar, Mahesh Bandi (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) presents an analysis of five years of data from an 80-turbine farm, revealing universal, collective, and nonlinear correlations that shape wind power fluctuations.
youtu.be/i2WumlT3Mm0
youtu.be/i2WumlT3Mm0
In her new book, Thinking Through Archaeological Complexity, SFI External Professor Stefani Crabtree (Utah State University) shows how tools from complex systems can help archaeologists understand how everyday actions of ancient people accumulated into the large-scale patterns we excavate today.
Review: Thinking Through Archaeological Complexity
Complexity science can help archaeologists understand how the everyday actions of ancient people accumulated into the large-scale patterns we excavate today. In her new book, Thinking Through Arc...
www.santafe.edu
October 10, 2025 at 9:45 PM
In her new book, Thinking Through Archaeological Complexity, SFI External Professor Stefani Crabtree (Utah State University) shows how tools from complex systems can help archaeologists understand how everyday actions of ancient people accumulated into the large-scale patterns we excavate today.
In this Seminar, Scott Aaronson (University of Texas at Austin) explores the limits of mathematical knowability — from Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and Turing’s uncomputability to the growth of the Busy Beaver function and future possibilities of quantum computing.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQC7...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQC7...
October 9, 2025 at 8:17 PM
In this Seminar, Scott Aaronson (University of Texas at Austin) explores the limits of mathematical knowability — from Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and Turing’s uncomputability to the growth of the Busy Beaver function and future possibilities of quantum computing.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQC7...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQC7...
Launched in 2022 by SFI donor Hank Schuyler, the Lou Schuyler Seed Grant Fund supports bold, boundary-breaking research by SFI postdoctoral fellows — projects that bridge disciplines and reflect the fund’s spirit of curiosity and innovation.
www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
October 8, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Launched in 2022 by SFI donor Hank Schuyler, the Lou Schuyler Seed Grant Fund supports bold, boundary-breaking research by SFI postdoctoral fellows — projects that bridge disciplines and reflect the fund’s spirit of curiosity and innovation.
www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
www.santafe.edu/news-center/...
Reserve your free tickets to SFI’s next Community Lecture with renowned developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik:
“Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?”
October 21, 7:30 pm at The Lensic Performing Arts Center.
Tickets: lensic.org/events/aliso...
“Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?”
October 21, 7:30 pm at The Lensic Performing Arts Center.
Tickets: lensic.org/events/aliso...
October 7, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reserve your free tickets to SFI’s next Community Lecture with renowned developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik:
“Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?”
October 21, 7:30 pm at The Lensic Performing Arts Center.
Tickets: lensic.org/events/aliso...
“Transmission Versus Truth: What Will It Take to Make an AI as Smart as a 4-Year-Old?”
October 21, 7:30 pm at The Lensic Performing Arts Center.
Tickets: lensic.org/events/aliso...
Every society must balance the costs of invention with the benefits of innovation.
In a new paper in Science Advances, SFI External Professor Marcus Hamilton and colleagues present a new model showing the tradeoffs between the cost and utility of new tools in small-scale societies.
In a new paper in Science Advances, SFI External Professor Marcus Hamilton and colleagues present a new model showing the tradeoffs between the cost and utility of new tools in small-scale societies.
In search of the optimal toolkit
In a new paper in Science Advances, SFI External Professor Marcus Hamilton and colleagues present a new model showing the tradeoffs between the cost and utility of new tools in small-scale societies.
www.santafe.edu
October 6, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Every society must balance the costs of invention with the benefits of innovation.
In a new paper in Science Advances, SFI External Professor Marcus Hamilton and colleagues present a new model showing the tradeoffs between the cost and utility of new tools in small-scale societies.
In a new paper in Science Advances, SFI External Professor Marcus Hamilton and colleagues present a new model showing the tradeoffs between the cost and utility of new tools in small-scale societies.
SFI welcomes Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow Jacob Calvert.
A mathematician and data scientist, Calvert studies how collective behaviors emerge and recur across physical and biological systems. “I try to see which analogies actually hold up to the microscope of precise mathematics” he says.
A mathematician and data scientist, Calvert studies how collective behaviors emerge and recur across physical and biological systems. “I try to see which analogies actually hold up to the microscope of precise mathematics” he says.
SFI welcomes Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow Jacob Calvert
The human brain is remarkably good at detecting patterns in the world around us. We notice behaviors, rhythms, and recurrences, and often build analogies to explain them. But not all of these intuitiv...
www.santafe.edu
October 3, 2025 at 5:29 PM
SFI welcomes Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow Jacob Calvert.
A mathematician and data scientist, Calvert studies how collective behaviors emerge and recur across physical and biological systems. “I try to see which analogies actually hold up to the microscope of precise mathematics” he says.
A mathematician and data scientist, Calvert studies how collective behaviors emerge and recur across physical and biological systems. “I try to see which analogies actually hold up to the microscope of precise mathematics” he says.
SFI External Professor Juan Pérez-Mercader and colleagues recreated a “primordial pond” in the lab. When energized, it formed micrometer-scale structures that make and replicate their own parts. They note that the behavior they observed could be the essential step that preceded life on Earth.
Brief: Synthetic self-assembling and self-reproducing cells
A paper published in PNAS in May describes work by External Professor Juan Pérez-Mercader and colleagues to create biochemistry-free self-assembling and reproducing
www.santafe.edu
October 1, 2025 at 5:39 PM
SFI External Professor Juan Pérez-Mercader and colleagues recreated a “primordial pond” in the lab. When energized, it formed micrometer-scale structures that make and replicate their own parts. They note that the behavior they observed could be the essential step that preceded life on Earth.
In August, the AIP Foundation celebrated SFI External Professor France Córdova and announced an Endowed Forum in her honor. Córdova has been an astrophysicist, University president, NASA chief scientist, NSF Director, and, now, President of the Science Philanthropy Alliance.
www.santafe.edu/news
www.santafe.edu/news
September 26, 2025 at 5:31 PM
In August, the AIP Foundation celebrated SFI External Professor France Córdova and announced an Endowed Forum in her honor. Córdova has been an astrophysicist, University president, NASA chief scientist, NSF Director, and, now, President of the Science Philanthropy Alliance.
www.santafe.edu/news
www.santafe.edu/news
SFI External Professor Jessika Trancik was named the director of MIT’s Sociotechnical Systems Research Center (SSRC) this summer. SSRC combines expertise from engineering, physical sciences, and social sciences to address complex societal challenges related to evolving technology.
santafe.edu/news
santafe.edu/news
September 25, 2025 at 8:32 PM
SFI External Professor Jessika Trancik was named the director of MIT’s Sociotechnical Systems Research Center (SSRC) this summer. SSRC combines expertise from engineering, physical sciences, and social sciences to address complex societal challenges related to evolving technology.
santafe.edu/news
santafe.edu/news
SFI External Professor Luis Bettencourt and co-author Nicholas Marchio (University of Chicago) use the first complete dataset of more than 415 million buildings in sub-Saharan Africa to map infrastructure deficits across 50 countries.
santafe.edu/news
santafe.edu/news
September 24, 2025 at 5:43 PM
SFI External Professor Luis Bettencourt and co-author Nicholas Marchio (University of Chicago) use the first complete dataset of more than 415 million buildings in sub-Saharan Africa to map infrastructure deficits across 50 countries.
santafe.edu/news
santafe.edu/news