Prof. Annalisa Buffa will be plenary speaker for the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM 2026) in Philadelphia, USA : https://www.icm2026.org/event/ac193975-5d24-4628-8c30-ddb23de19a8b/speakers
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\r\nThrough this annual call for projects, CROSS provides competitive grants to support new seed research endeavors that have the potential to grow into full–scale interdisciplinary research projects.
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\r\nThe 2024 CROSS call is open to all topics.
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\r\nPROPOSALS:
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\r\nProposals must come from joint UNIL-EPFL teams, which bring together specialists in the human and social sciences on the one hand, with specialists from life sciences, natural sciences or engineering on the other. Up to six projects will be selected, with a maximum of CHF 60,000 awarded per project.\r\n
This presentation treats space and mobility as inseparable, where space is produced through movement, coordination, and pause, while mobility is always spatially formatted by routes, nodes, and boundaries. Their intersection is therefore not an overlap but a relational field in which placement and movement continuously reify one another. This perspective invites complex mixed methods approaches based on methodological mapping across different forms of evidence, which can show how movements cluster or stretch, while narrative interviews, participatory mapping, and field observation can uncover how actors interpret routes, obstacles, and anchors in everyday life. The aim is not merely conventional triangulation, but conceptual integration: Using different methods to move between patterns in systems and interpretation of experience. Mixed methods research can theorize space-mobility while also exploring how they are experienced, governed, and contested.
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\r\nManfred Max Bergman is Chair of Social Research and Methodology at the University of Basel and Director of the Social Transitions Research Group. He works on methodological innovations to the study of sustainability transitions, inequality, health, corporate responsibility, and social change, with particular expertise in mixed methods research and case study design. He has contributed to scholarship on mobility, inequality, and public space through international comparative and interdisciplinary projects, and previously served as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Mixed Methods Research. His current international engagements include service on the Swiss National Science Foundation’s Indo-Swiss Joint Scientific Board, collaboration with ICSSR in India on an innovative research methods training programme, and a visiting professorship at NUS in Singapore focused on implementation science and transdisciplinary research.
For more than two decades leading professional organizations have called for a reform of the mathematics education of biology and life sciences students. Reflecting the growing importance of mathematics in life sciences research, such reform should bridge the gap between the mathematics students learn and the mathematics used in research.
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\r\nIn this talk, Steve Bennoun, UCLA, will present how the study of modeling and dynamical systems can be used to create a first-year course that introduces mathematical concepts used in life sciences research in a contextualized way.
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\r\nStudents first learn to write models for important biological systems such as hormone levels, epidemiological models, and predator-prey models.
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\r\nTaking a geometrical approach, students learn how to determine the long-term behaviors of models by studying phase plane trajectories and the stability of equilibrium points.
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\r\nThis enables the study of the concept of “biological switch” or how a cell can start or stop the production of a protein. This is followed by the important notion of qualitative change in a biological systems, or bifurcation.
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\r\nStudents learn in particular about Hopf bifurcations or how a system can start or stop oscillating. The second part of the course moves somewhat away from the geometrical approach and focuses on how to determine the stability of equilibrium points using the linearization of a model, motivating the study of the necessary notions from linear algebra by studying discrete-time models.
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\r\nThis talk will end with a discussion focusing on research by Sanders et al. (2021) suggesting that such a course supports students success and can reduce equity gaps.
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\r\nlunch&LEARN sessions are intended for anyone who teaches at EPFL.
\r\nThis session is hybrid and can be attended in person or followed via zoom.
\r\nMost sessions are recorded and can be found on the Center LEARN's YouTube channel.
\r\nTo get in touch with the team, to suggest a session, or to make inquiries, please send an email to lunchLEARN@groupes.epfl.ch
Hosted by Solange Denervaud, CIBM Flagship Project Officer, we are pleased to invite you to attend the CIBM Visitors Talk on April 24th at 13:00 CEST by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang from the University of Southern California who will be sharing on “Longitudinal neurodevelopmental correlates of mid-adolescents’ psychosocial processing: A path to young adult wellbeing?”.
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\r\nAbstract
\r\nCombining open-ended interviews (outside the scanner) with structural, trial-by-trial, and resting-state functional MRI neuroimaging, we examined real-time functional neural dynamics underlying diverse urban mid-adolescents’ cognitive and emotional engagement with compelling social stories at two time-points, two years apart. We found that the patterns of longitudinal change in neural network dynamics predicted psychosocial outcomes five years later in young adulthood.
\r\nWe found that “transcendent thinking” – seeing situations not just in terms of X happened to person A, which makes me feel thusly, but in terms of the larger societal and contextual forces that shaped how Person A was treated and how Person A reacted, the broader implications and lessons one can draw from that situation, and the larger issues it exemplifies or reveals—correlated with a particular set of neural activity dynamics and predicted future structural and functional neural development across the subsequent two years, controlling for the starting state of neural development, and independent of IQ and SES. Transcendent thinking also countered negative effects of exposure to community violence on structural brain development.
\r\nThe neural development predicted by transcendent thinking (the changes in the brain across the 2-year period) in turn predicted young adult identity strength, self-liking, relationship satisfaction, and achievement 5 years later.
\r\nThese findings reveal a novel predictor of neural development across mid-adolescence, and underscore the active role adolescents play in their own brain development through the meaning they make of the social world. Implications for secondary education and pedagogy will be discussed.
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We can build the perfect pedagogical tool. But will students actually use and benefit from it?
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\r\nThis session explores a question at the heart of the integration of new technology into education: How can a well-designed pedagogical tool be ideally leveraged to truly make a difference in student learning?
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\r\nFares Fawzi from the ML4ED lab at EPFL will present his development of a GenAI-powered formative feedback tool that is pedagogically aligned, contextually grounded, and interactive.
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\r\nDeployed during an in-class session as well as for exam preparation in a computer science course at EPFL, the tool performed as intended: responses were relevant, accurate, and aligned with pedagogical frameworks for feedback delivery.
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\r\nHowever, during this session, we want to invite you to look beyond the pedagogical sophistication of the tool itself, and ask how integration context shapes student engagement and beneficial learning impact.
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\r\n
\r\nlunch&LEARN sessions are intended for anyone who teaches at EPFL.
\r\nThis session is hybrid and can be attended in person or followed via zoom.
\r\nMost sessions are recorded and can be found on the Center LEARN's YouTube channel.
\r\nTo get in touch with the team, to suggest a session or make inquiries, please send an email on lunchLEARN@groupes.epfl.ch