IceLab's 15th anniversary

Everyone is welcome to join us for a special anniversary event featuring inspiring talks from leading researchers, interactive activities, and a retrospective look at our journey. Discover how IceLab has fostered interdisciplinary research and creative problem-solving over the past decade and a half. Don't miss this opportunity to connect with our vibrant community and become a part of IceLab's future.

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Registration will open in mid-March!

Keynote speakers

Ricard Solé, ICREA research professor at the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Professor Ricard Solé is head of the Complex Systems Lab (LINK). He is also an External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico, USA), an external faculty of the Center for Evolution and Cancer at UCSF, an external faculty at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, a member of the Council of the European Complex Systems Society and member of the editorial board of PLoS ONE. 

Ricard focuses on understanding the evolutionary origins of complex systems, using both mathematical models and experimental approaches based on synthetic biology. He has proposed the concept of “synthetic major transitions” as a unifying framework to explore the origins of innovation in evolution using a parallel approach, namely the potential for building or simulating synthetic systems that can recreate past evolutionary events. This includes the origin of protocells, multicellular systems, symbiosis, cognition, and language. 

Another research area deals with unstable evolutionary dynamics, namely the dynamics of biological systems (particularly RNA viruses and cancer) that tend towards high genetic instability as part of their adaptation potential.

Ricard also introduced the concept of “terraforming” endangered or human-made ecosystems to avoid catastrophic shifts. 

Jevin West, Professor and Associate Dean for Research in the Information School at the University of Washington

Jevin co-founded and directed the Center for an Informed Public. He uses computational methods to study the sociology of science, the spread of misinformation, and the impact of generative AI on collective discourse. He believes strongly in the teaching mission of the university and has co-created open courses, games, and programs devoted to improving critical thinking and data reasoning in a digital world. Jevin was a member of IceLab from 2011 to 2012 during his time as a postdoctoral researcher. Find out more about Jevin West on his website.

Fariba Karimi, Professor of Social Data Science at Graz University of Technology and Faculty at Complexity Science Hub, Austria

Fariba Karimi leads the research team on Algorithmic Fairness at the Complexity Science Hub. Fariba’s research focuses on computational social science, the emergence of biases and inequality in networks and algorithms, and modelling human behaviour. Her recent research revolves around the topics of the visibility of minorities in social networks, the impact of network structure on ranking and recommender algorithms, and disparities in academia and their impact on under-represented groups. She combines statistical analyses of large datasets of online interactions with computational models, agent-based modelling, and network analysis.

Fariba is a former IceLab member. She received a PhD in physics and computational science from Umea University, in Sweden, in 2015.

The 15 years of IceLab

On April 16, 2010, IceLab opened its physical doors for the first time. Researchers from the departments of Physics, Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, and Ecology and Environmental Science, keen on answering questions that crossed traditional scientific boundaries found a home there. Since then, we have had an open-door policy - guests are always welcome to come to our activities and spend time in our space.

When researchers with wide-ranging backgrounds, questions and ways of thinking are brought together, they may come up with innovative ideas if conditions are favourable for generating outside-the-box thinking. To create these conditions, IceLab and its researchers, from fields as diverse as mathematics, physics, ecology, biology, plant physiology and computer science, promote events and activities where researchers from different disciplines meet to identify and discuss connections and synergies between their research projects.

We aim to be a place where the focus is on ideas, where anyone can contribute with a suggestion, a question, or even a new project direction, and those contributions are received with open arms and followed up. Icelabbers lead by example, showing other interested researchers how to be open and collaborative to help make new exciting research happen. We want to help each other be better researchers by providing the opportunities and guidance to learn how to reach out to each other and beyond to create and follow up opportunities. 

Our openness and focus on interdisciplinary work have led to IceLab consisting of over 60 connected researchers, an evergrowing number through initiatives such as the multidisciplinary postdoctoral programme in 2020, funded by Kempestiftelserna, and the stress response modeling at IceLab 2024, funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Celebrate with us!

This event celebrates our journey and the 15th anniversary of our mindset of openness and cross-boundary research. We hope you want to take part in the event, which will not only showcase our journey as an interdisciplinary science centre, but also try to inspire the participants in rewarding cross-boundary science!

We thank our funders for both supporting IceLab and this event