Workshops on the Computational Worldview and the Sciences
Report on the two workshops

Workshop 2: Caltech, Pasadena CA (link to workshop 1)

Overview
The National Science Foundation has provided funding for two workshops that aim to identify and pursue novel insights that may be obtained by applying a computational worldview to the Natural, Social and Mathematical Sciences (including but not limited to Biology, Neuroscience, Physics, Nanotechnology, Control Theory, Mathematics, Ecology, Economics). These workshops will be held in Princeton (Dec 11-12, 2006) and Pasadena (Mar 15-16, 2007).
Leading experts from various fields will be invited to make presentations and hold informal discussions to identify major research problems that may benefit from such an approach. The goal will be to not just identify areas of scientific computation where new algorithms are needed, but also instances where computational concepts play a role in understanding the underlying phenomena. The hope is to have a lively exchange of ideas in a multidisciplinary setting, possibly sparking new collaborations and research directions. This new research agenda will be described in a technical report to be submitted to NSF.

Each talk is followed by a 20-minute discussion period
All talks are on the Caltech campus in the Lees-Kubota lecture hall, 101 Guggenheim (bldg. #45 on the map)
Thursday March 15, 2007
8:05
Shuttle from the Sheraton to Caltech
8:15-8:45
Registration and continental breakfast
8:45
Welcoming remarks: Richard Karp (Berkeley), Michael Foster (NSF) slides (Foster), cyber-enabled discovery and innovation (Foster), video (Karp and Foster)
9:00-9:40
Jon Kleinberg (Cornell): Algorithmic models for social network phenomena slides, video
10:00-10:30
Coffee
10:30-11:10
John Preskill (Caltech): Quantum information and the future of physics slides, video
11:30-12:10
Umesh Vazirani (Berkeley): Computational constraints on scientific theories: insights from quantum computing slides, video
12:30-2:00
Lunch
2:00-2:40
Richard Murray (Caltech): Control in an information-rich world slides, video
3:00-3:40
Ali Jadbabaie (U Penn): Distributed motion coordination in multi-agent systems: From flocking and synchronization to coverage verification in sensor networks slides, video
4:00-4:30
Coffee
4:30-5:10
Andrei Broder (Yahoo! Research): Technical challenges in web advertising slides, video
6:30
Workshop dinner
8:15
Shuttle from Caltech (driveway behind Guggenheim) to the Sheraton
Friday March 16, 2007
8:20
Shuttle from the Sheraton to Caltech
8:30-9:00
Continental breakfast
9:00-9:40
Andrew Connolly (Pittsburgh): Streaming the sky: The challenge for astronomy in the era of petabyte surveys video
10:00-10:30
Coffee
10:30-11:10
Andrea Montanari (Stanford): Phase transitions in large graphical models: from physics to information theory and computer science slides, video
11:30-12:10
Gavin Crooks (Berkeley and LBL): Importance sampling of trajectories in complex systems slides, video
12:30-2:00
Lunch
2:00-2:05 (late addition)
Andrew Odlyzko (U Minnesota): Board of Mathematical Sciences and their Applications (BMSA) of the National Research Council (NRC) video
2:00-2:40
Andrew Postlewaite (U Penn): Decision-making in economics slides, video
3:00-3:40
Ehud Kalai (Northwestern): Modelling large games slides, video
4:00-4:30
Coffee
4:30-5:10
Colin Camerer and Antonio Rangel (Caltech): Computational models of economic valuation and strategy choice slides, video
6:30
Organizing committee dinner

Tentative list of participants

Sanjeev Arora (Princeton), Yair Bartal (Hebrew U), Avrim Blum (CMU), Andrei Broder (Yahoo! Research), Colin Camerer (Caltech), Tony Chan (NSF), Andrew Connolly (Pittsburgh), Gavin Crooks (Berkeley and LBL), George Djorgovski (Caltech), John Doyle (Caltech), Federico Echenique (Caltech), Michael Foster (NSF), Fan Chung Graham (UCSD), Ron Graham (UCSD), Russell Impagliazzo (UCSD), Piotr Indyk (MIT), Sandy Irani (UCI), Sergei Izmalkov (MIT), Ali Jadbabaie (U Penn), Adam Kalai (Georgia Tech), Ehud Kalai (Northwestern), Richard Karp (Berkeley), David Kempe (USC), Jon Kleinberg (Cornell), Phil Kuekes (HP), John Ledyard (Caltech), Richard Lipton (Georgia Tech), Mat McCubbins (UCSD), Adam Meyerson (UCLA), Andrea Montanari (Stanford), Elchanan Mossel (Berkeley), Kamesh Munagala (Duke), Richard Murray (Caltech), Andrew Odlyzko (UMN), Rafail Ostrovsky (UCLA), Ramamohan Paturi (UCSD), Andrew Postlewaite (U Penn), John Preskill (Caltech), Antonio Rangel (Caltech), Sara Robinson (Berkeley), Tim Roughgarden (Stanford), Eyal Rozenman (Caltech), Amit Sahai (UCLA), Leonard Schulman (Caltech), Alistair Sinclair (Berkeley), William Steiger (NSF), Luca Trevisan (Berkeley), Chris Umans (Caltech), Umesh Vazirani (Berkeley), Vijay Vazirani (Georgia Tech), Erik Winfree (Caltech), Neal Young (UCR).

Travel information

Getting to Pasadena and Caltech: The nearest airports are Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) about an hour away and Bob Hope Airport (BUR) about 30 minutes away. Here is more information. For a campus map, and automatically-generated driving directions to campus, see here.
Getting to the talks: From the Athenaeum walk 2-3 minutes west along the Olive walk; the Guggenheim building will be on your left and Lees-Kubota is just off the foyer. From the Sheraton you can either take the shuttle which will depart 10 minutes before breakfast each morning, and return at the end of the schedule (time TBA) each day, or enjoy a 1.5 mile walk. (East on Cordova, south on Los Robles, east on Del Mar, south on Wilson, turn into campus on the San Pasqual walkway and follow the campus map.)
If you are driving to campus, see these parking instructions.


Steering committee

David Haussler - UC Santa Cruz
Richard Karp - ICSI and UC Berkeley
Leslie Valiant - Harvard University
Avi Wigderson - Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Organizing committee

Sanjeev Arora - Princeton University
Avrim Blum - Carnegie Mellon University
Leonard Schulman - California Institute of Technology
Alistair Sinclair - UC Berkeley
Vijay Vazirani - Georgia Institute of Technology