Mathematics and Biology II: Mathematics and Science of Behavior
Mathematics and Biology II: Mathematics and Science of Behavior
Dates: April 27 – May 1, 2026
Location: Harvard CMSA, Room G10, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge MA
This meeting will explore the emerging mathematics and science of embodied cognition—the idea that behavior arises not solely from the brain but through the dynamic interaction of brain, body, and environment. Understanding how animals sense, move, decide, and coordinate, from individual sensorimotor loops to collective dynamics, demands mathematical frameworks that integrate geometry, dynamics, stochastic processes, control theory, and multiscale physics. The meeting will bring together experimentalists studying behavior across species with theorists and engineers building mathematical models and bio-inspired machines, to identify shared principles of adaptive behavior.
Co-organizers: L. Mahadevan (Harvard), Francesco Mori (Harvard CMSA), Venkatesh Murthy (Harvard)
Speakers
- Pulkit Agrawal, MIT
- Kristin Branson, HHMI
- Antonio C. Costa, Sorbonne University/Paris Brain Institute
- Noah Cowan, Johns Hopkins University
- Robert Datta, Harvard Medical School
- Ben de Bivort, Harvard University
- Ofer Feinerman, Weizmann Institute of Science
- Deborah Gordon, Stanford University
- Albert Kao, UMass Boston
- Ann Kennedy, Scripps Research Institute
- Hungtang Ko, Tufts University
- George Lauder, Harvard University
- L. Mahadevan, Harvard University
- Venkatesh Murthy, Harvard University
- Bence Ölveczky, Harvard University
- Kirstin Petersen, Cornell University
- Pavan Ramdya, EPFL
- Metin Sitti, Koç University
- Elizabeth Tibbetts, University of Michigan
- Robert Wood, Harvard University