Applications open for SFI’s 2026 GWCSS program, a 2-week workshop for Ph.D. students and early-career scholars to explore complex systems and computation, collaborate on challenges, and advance their research with support from SFI faculty. Apply by Feb 4, 2026 www.santafe.edu/gwcss

Now accepting applications for SFI’s 2026 CSSS program, a 3-week experience for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professionals to explore foundational theory, engage in collaborative projects, and connect with a global research community. Apply by Feb 4, 2026 www.santafe.edu/csss

Do you want to help develop new theories for systems that adapt, evolve, and interact? Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 UCR program, a fully funded, 10-week experience for undergraduates, offering mentorship, seminars, and project development. Apply by Jan 14, 2026 www.santafe.edu/ucr

During the COVID-19 pandemic, UCLA biologists witnessed a rare natural experiment among dark-eyed juncos in Los Angeles. A new PNAS study by SFI External Professor Pamela Yeh and co-author Eleanor Diamant explores how sudden changes in human activity reshaped urban bird life.

Are you a journalist with a deep interest in complexity? Each year, the Santa Fe Institute invites two experienced journalists to join the Complex Systems Summer School through the CSSS Journalism Fellowship. Application deadline: Feb. 4, 2026 Learn more: santafe.edu/journalism-f...

For computational devices, talk isn’t cheap. A new study by SFI Prof. David Wolpert and former Graduate Fellow Abhishek Yadav shows that every bit of information — from neurons firing to CPUs reading memory — has an unavoidable energy cost, and more accurate communication always means more heat.

New book: Allocation, Distribution, and Policy In a new textbook, SFI Professor Sam Bowles and Weikai Chen, a professor of economics at Renmin University of China, present Ph.D.-level problem sets, exam questions, and detailed solutions based on a novel approach to microeconomics.

The simulation hypothesis has long captured our imagination, yet most arguments rely on intuition over clear definitions. A new paper by SFI Professor David Wolpert introduces the first precise mathematical framework for defining simulation — and shows many common assumptions don’t hold up.

For most of history, societies drew firm lines between those who belonged and those who didn't, shaping who was protected or excluded. Beginning in the Enlightenment, European societies began expanding rights. A recent SFI working group is examining the historical forces driving this expansion.

In October, the International Society for Artificial Life recognized several SFI researchers and co-authors with the ISAL Award for Outstanding Publication of 2024. The award celebrates the paper “Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems," which was published last fall.

New book: An Introduction to Ergodicity Economics A new textbook by SFI External Professor Ole Peters and Alexander Adamou re-examines core assumptions in economic theory. It presents a formal challenge to expected-value thinking and shows how non-ergodicity can arise naturally in economic models.

Three SFI External Professors and collaborators received a 2025 SAF Research Award from the Shanghai Archaeology Forum for their ongoing project, “The Global Dynamics of Inequality over the Long Term.” The project was one of 10 celebrated at the 2025 SAF meeting, selected from 140 nominations.

Are you an early-career researcher or research professional with a broad interest in complexity science? Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 CSSS program, a three-week, in-residence program offering an intensive introduction to complexity science. Apply by Feb 4, 2026 santafe.edu/csss

A new study co-authored by SFI’s Mark Newman and Max Jerdee shows that a widely used metric for evaluating algorithms (NMI) can produce biased results, impacting scientific conclusions. To address this, the authors developed an asymmetric, reduced version of the mutual information metric.

Applications open for SFI’s 2026 UCR program. Are you fascinated by transdisciplinary questions that transcend or combine disciplines? UCR is a fully funded, 10-week summer research experience for undergraduates curious about complexity science. Apply by Jan 14, 2026 santafe.edu/ucr

Can we build a science of stories? This week, a transdisciplinary group at SFI asks: What if we treated stories as data? As networks? As science? By mapping their patterns across time and culture, researchers aim to reveal how narratives shape knowledge, meaning, and power.

How likely are you to invest in a new business? Ask your partner to marry you? Move to a new country? A new model by SFI External Professor Paul Smaldino and colleagues explains how wealth, experience, and environment shape our risk tolerance — and how those effects persist across generations.

Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 summer education programs, offering research and training in complexity science in Santa Fe, NM: – Undergraduate Complexity Research – Complex Systems Summer School – Graduate Workshop in Computational Social Science Info: www.santafe.edu/engage/learn...

SFI welcomes complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Max Jerdee Jerdee focuses on building unbiased methods for analyzing network data. Using tools such as Bayesian inference and related probabilistic approaches, he develops models that identify network structures while rigorously quantifying uncertainty.

A new special issue of Philosophical Transactions B takes on one of science’s biggest questions: how life begins. Rather than retracing Earth’s history, the authors look for the universal conditions that could make life possible anywhere, approaching the question from many fields and angles.

If you missed any of the 2025 SFI Community Lectures, remember you can stream them on our YouTube channel. The 2025 series covered diverse topics, ranging from computation and artificial intelligence to molecular biology, history, philosophy, and cognitive science. www.youtube.com/@SFIScience/...

At SFI, Sahana Subramanyam found a place where ideas moved freely between disciplines and mentors encouraged exploration. Her experience in the Undergraduate Complexity Research (UCR) program helped shape her path to a Ph.D. at Stanford and a research career on social inequality. Read her essay:

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/...

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-...

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.

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.

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.

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:

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

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

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/...

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

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

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

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...

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/...

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...

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.

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.

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

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

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

Since the 1970s, the cost of solar-energy systems has plummeted by over 99%. In a recent paper published in PLOS One, SFI External Professor Jessika Trancik (MIT) and colleagues identify the innovations in various photovoltaic components that led to this spectacular decline.  santafe.edu/news

SFI President David Krakauer joins The Generalist Podcast to talk about intelligence, the influence of AI on human thinking, and how to preserve creativity and understanding in a rapidly changing information landscape. Watch the full interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSBL...

Final week to apply for the 2026 SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships If you're an early-career scholar and passionate about collaborative, transdisciplinary research beyond traditional departments, this is the postdoc fellowship for you. Deadline: Oct 1, 2025 Apply: santafe.edu/sfifellowship