The 2026 Berkeley Statistical Mechanics Meeting
January 8–11, 2026
Thursday, January 8, 2026
2:00 pm
Registration & Check-In
Tan Hall Lobby
4:00 pm
Welcome and CECAM-US-WEST Kickoff
120 Latimer Hall
David Limmer, Director presiding
4:10 pm
Welcome to UC Berkeley, Katherine Yelick, Vice Chancellor for Research
4:15 pm
Partnership with Berkeley Lab
Jeffrey Neaton, Associate Lab Director, LBNL
4:30 pm
Poster Session I - Two-minute Talks
5:30 pm
Poster Session Ia - Discussions & Light Reception
Tan Hall Lobby
Friday, January 9, 2026
7:45 am
Breakfast
Tan Hall Lobby
8:45 am
Introductory Remarks
120 Latimer Hall
David Limmer
Friday Lecture Session I -- Discussion chair: Will Jacobs
120 Latimer Hall
9:00 am
Nikta Fakhri, MIT
"Nonreciprocal living matter"
9:30 am
Ignacio Pagonabarraga, University of Barcelona
"Shaping active matter: Symmetry, confinement, and effective interactions"
10:00 am
Ahmad Omar, University of California, Berkeley
"The mechanics of active interfaces and membranes"
10:30 am
Coffee Break
Tan Hall Lobby
Friday Lecture Session II -- Discussion chair: Asaph Widmer-Cooper
120 Latimer Hall
11:00 am
Sho Takatori, Stanford University
"Many-body hydrodynamic interactions in complex fluids"
11:30 am
Julien Tailleur, MIT
"The active Young-Dupré Equation"
12:00 pm
Lunch
775 Tan Hall
Friday Lecture Session III -- Discussion chair: Shirley Ahn
120 Latimer Hall
2:00 pm
Cecilia Clementi, Freie Universität Berlin
"Modelling Protein Dynamics with Machine Learning and Molecular Simulation"
2:30 pm
Xuhui Huang, University of Wisconsin
"Machine Learning Models for Non-Markovian Protein Dynamics"
3:00 pm
Glen Hocky, New York University
"Stitching together batches of biased data for fast and accurate biomolecular kinetics estimates"
3:30 pm
Coffee Break
Tan Hall Lobby
Friday Lecture Session IV -- Discussion chair: Attila Szabo
120 Latimer Hall
4:00 pm
Matthieu Wyart, EPFL
"Creativity in generative AI"
4:30 pm
DAVID CHANDLER LECTURE
Gerhard Hummer, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics
"Learning from molecular simulations"
5:15 pm
Poster Session Ib -- Discussions & Light Reception
Tan Hall Lobby
Saturday, January 10, 2026
8:00 am
Breakfast
Tan Hall Lobby
Saturday Lecture Session I -- Discussion chair: Grant Rotskoff
120 Latimer Hall
9:00 am
Qian Chen, University of Illinois
"Electron videography for atomic to nanoscale manufacturing of colloidal matter"
9:30 am
Denis Bartolo, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon
"Emergence of collective motion in dense crowds"
10:00 am
Aparna Baskaran, Brandeis University
"Controlling active fluids: from chaotic dynamics to coherent flows and ordered structures"
10:30 am
Coffee Break
Tan Hall Lobby
Saturday Lecture Session II -- Discussion chair: Adam Willard
120 Latimer Hall
11:00 am
Zhen-Gang Wang, Caltech
"Anomalous Phase Behavior in Polymeric Solutions with Electrostatic Interactions"
11:30 am
Timothy Berkelbach, Columbia University
"Realistic simulations of surface chemistry"
12:00 pm
Lunch
775 Tan Hall
Saturday Lecture Session III -- Discussion chair: Christopher Lynn
120 Latimer Hall
2:00 pm
Pieter Rein ten Wolde, AMOLF
"The utility of information for navigation"
2:30 pm
Eleni Katifori, University of Pennsylvania
"A paradox in strategies of optimal search"
3:00 pm
Oskar Hallatschek, University of California, Berkeley
"Microbial island biogeography"
3:30 pm
Coffee Break
Tan Hall Lobby
Saturday Lecture Session IV -- Discussion chair: Bingqing Cheng
120 Latimer Hall
4:00 pm
Aditi Krishnapriyan, UC Berkeley
"On the flexibility of constraints in machine learning for leveraging neural network representations"
4:30 pm
Pilar Cossio, Flatiron Institute
"Inferring probability distributions from cryo-EM particles"
5:10 pm
Poster Session II -- Two minute talks
120 Latimer Hall
6:00 pm
Poster Session II -- Discussions & Light Reception
Tan Hall Lobby
Sunday, January 11, 2026
7:45 am
Breakfast
Tan Hall Lobby
Sunday Lecture Session I -- Discussion chair: Rob Jack
120 Latimer Hall
9:30 am
Feliciano Giustino, University of Texas at Austin
"Polarons and exciton polarons from first principles"
10:00 am
Katarzyna Macieszczak, University of Warwick
"One to many and many to one: relations between average and stochastic dynamics of open quantum systems"
10:30 am
Coffee Break
Tan Hall Lobby
Sunday Lecture Session II -- Discussion chair: Gavin Crooks
120 Latimer Hall
11:00 am
Massimiliano Esposito, University of Luxemberg
"Energy-Transduction Gears in Chemical Reaction Networks"
11:30 am
Erwin Frey, LMU Munich
"Interface laws in reaction--diffusion system"
12:00 pm
Closing Remarks: David Limmer
12:15 pm
Pizza Party
775 Tan Hall