Events
Past Event
Wednesdays@NICO Seminar: How do organisms build themselves?
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Donald P. Jacobs Center
Details
How do organisms build themselves?
Wednesdays@NICO | 12:00-1:00 PM, May 11, 2016 | Room 160, Jacobs Center, 2001 Sheridan Road, Northwestern University
Madhav Mani, Assistant Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, McCormick School of Engineering
Abstract
Addressing, or even precisely stating, this question is beyond science currently. Thus far the most successful approach to understanding how growth, differentiation, and morphogenesis -- the 3 pillars of development -- are coordinated in a developing organism has been a genetic one. After a historical review of the landmark discoveries of developmental genetics, I will give an overview of research in my own lab that employs tools common to physics. These tools are used to develop phenomenological, but quantitative, descriptions of the dynamics of development -- attempting to capture how development occurs, rather than why. In particular, I will present work on cell mechanics and gene regulation in the context of the developing fly embryo done in collaboration with experimental collaborators (Gregor Lab @ Princeton & Lecuit Lab @ Marseilles).
Bio
This is an exciting time to be studying organismal development. In spite of the progress in molecular biology built up over the last 3 decades, we are still searching for the mechanisms that couple the chemical and physical forms of organism. A misshaped hand, even with the right proportions of different cell types, wouldn't be of much use in gripping a cup of coffee. What are the collective cellular and tissue level mechanisms that generate the complex multicellular patterns of cellular differentiation and morphology in organisms? Recent advance in live fluorescent imaging provide us with a dynamic and spatially resolved view of organismal development, and what is needed now is the development of mathematical tools and models that can help ushering in a new, and physical, understanding of organismal biology. Complementing our interests in developmental biology is our study of gene regulation. In particular, we focus on stochastic and biophysical aspects of gene expression dynamics within the context of developmental systems.
In close collaboration with experimental labs around the world, my group develops quantitative image-analysis tools and mathematical models that guide the construction of inverse modeling schemes to make new and better measurements of live imaging data. When required, forward mathematical models are constructed to make sense of emergent phenomena, and more importantly, to generate predictions and hypotheses that guide future experimentation.
Time
Wednesday, May 11, 2016 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Donald P. Jacobs Center Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lachlan Smith, University of Sydney "Chaos in networks of coupled oscillators with multimodal natural frequency distributions"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Lachlan Smith, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Mathematics and Statistics. The University of Sydney
Title:
Chaos in networks of coupled oscillators with multimodal natural frequency distributions
Abstract:
Synchronization is ubiquitous to networks of coupled oscillators. We explore chaos in the Kuramoto model with multimodal distributions of the natural frequencies of oscillators and provide a comprehensive description under what conditions chaos occurs. For multimodal natural frequency distributions it is typical that there is a range of coupling strengths such that multiple synchronized clusters coexist, with one synchronized cluster per peak in the frequency distribution. We use collective coordinates to describe the inter- and intra-cluster dynamics, which reduces the Kuramoto model to a small number of effective degrees of freedom. We show that chaos of the phases of clusters can occur provided there are at least four peaks in the frequency distribution, and that chaos can occur via intermittent desynchronization of a cluster if there are three peaks. In addition, we use collective coordinates to show analytically that chaos cannot occur for bimodal frequency distributions, even if they are asymmetric and if intermittent desynchronization occurs.
Speaker Bio:
Lachlan Smith is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, working with Georg Gottwald. Lachlan is interested in the collective behaviour of dynamical entities in networks, such as the synchronization of coupled oscillators. He uses a collective coordinate approach to reduce the dimension of the model, which allows greater analytical insight. Before moving to Sydney, Lachlan was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, working with Julio Ottino, Richard Lueptow and Paul Umbanhowar to study mixing and transport by cutting-and-shuffling, with applications to granular mixing. Lachlan received his PhD from Monash University in Mechanical Engineering.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - May 2019 Meeting "Combining R with Python"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
6:30 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
MARCH MEETING: Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 6:30pm in Chambers Hall, Evanston
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly hack nights on popular data science topics, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!
Theme: Combining R with Python
Agenda: TBA
For more info: data-science-nights.org
Supporting Groups:
This event is supported by the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems, and the Northwestern Data Science Initiative.
Time
Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lightning Talks with Northwestern Post Doctoral Fellows and Scholars!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Time
Wednesday, June 5, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Spring classes end
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Spring classes end
Time
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar
Data Science Nights - June 2019 Meeting
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
6:30 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
MARCH MEETING: Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 6:30pm in Chambers Hall, Evanston
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly hack nights on popular data science topics, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!
Theme: TBA
Agenda: TBA
For more info: data-science-nights.org
Supporting Groups:
This event is supported by the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems, and the Northwestern Data Science Initiative.
Time
Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Data Science Nights - July 2019 Meeting
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
6:30 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
MARCH MEETING: Thursday, June 25, 2019 at 6:30pm in Chambers Hall, Evanston
DATA SCIENCE NIGHTS are monthly hack nights on popular data science topics, organized by Northwestern University graduate students and scholars. Aspiring, beginning, and advanced data scientists are welcome!
Theme: TBA
Agenda: TBA
For more info: data-science-nights.org
Supporting Groups:
This event is supported by the Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems, and the Northwestern Data Science Initiative.
Time
Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)