Emergence beyond boundaries and disciplines
Future Challenges session organised by DIEP, as part of the IAS Festival
- Date
- 21 May 2026
- Time
- 14:00 -16:00
- Location
- Oude Turfmarkt 145-147
- Room
- Sweelinck Room
Programme
| 14:00-14:10 | Walk in & coffee |
| 14:10-14:25 | Introduction to DIEP by Jay Armas (UvA/DIEP/IAS) |
| 14:25 - 15:35 | Informal talks by DIEP researchers Swarnendu Banerjee, Abel Jansma, Ben Meylahn, Vito Seinen and Merijn Moody on multiple aspects of Emergence in complex systems |
| 15:35 - 16:00 | Q&A and discussion |
Speakers
Swarnendu Banerjee
Swarnendu Banerjee is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena (DIEP) and the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam. His research explores ecological patterns and processes across scales of space, time, and organisation. Using mathematical and computational approaches, he studies ecosystem functioning, stability, global change impacts, and the spread of infectious diseases.
Abel Jansma
Abel Jansma is a fellow at the Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena, and affiliated to the Institute of Physics (IoP), and the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC). He studies the foundations and applications of emergence in complex systems.
Ben Meylahn
Ben studied Industrial Engineering at Stellenbosch University, obtaining his Master's degree in March 2021. Since then, he has been working at the Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics in the Probability Theory group. His research interests are in modelling trust and learning in the context of network interactions.
Vito Seinen
Vito joined DIEP in March 2024 as a PhD student within the FAEME project. His research is on developing a framework that can capture emergent transitions in non-equilibrium dynamical systems. Of specific interest is describing the dynamical phase transitions that occur in active matter and other driven systems.
Merijn Moody
Merijn joined DIEP in October 2024 as a FAEME PhD student. His research focuses on developing a mathematical framework to identify emergent information structures in multivariate discrete data. He works on linking high-order spin models with graph theory, exploring connections to the Tutte polynomial on matroids, and studying these models through an information-geometric lens.
About the organiser: DIEP
The Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena (DIEP) is an interdisciplinary research centre across fundamental sciences with the purpose of furthering the understanding of emergent phenomena. Its goal is to create an interdisciplinary research programme among these different institutes that covers subjects such information theory, topological phases of matter, multiscale modelling, networks, complex systems, emergence of causality, non-equilibrium systems, collective intelligence, among many others.
From 18 to 21 May 2026, the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Advanced Study celebrates its 10th anniversary with the IAS Festival: a week-long programme dedicated to reflection, exchange and forward-looking dialogue. The festival marks a decade of boundary-crossing interdisciplinary research while exploring the complex questions that will shape the years to come.
The programme includes the launch of a special anniversary publication "The Edge of Knowing", alongside a series of Future Challenges sessions that bring together leading thinkers from science, society, policy and the arts. Participants will have the opportunity to engage with urgent themes, transcending disciplinary boundaries and exploring new perspectives in lectures, discussions and interactive sessions.