Function from Complexity

What’s your vision for materials and chemistry research at Berkeley Lab 5-10 years from now?

Chemical, biological, environmental, soft-matter, and materials systems can exhibit distinct behaviors that emerge from nonlinear processes, competing interactions, and interfacial phenomena. Emergent behavior is ubiquitous in the natural world, yet we typically lack the tools to characterize all the key components or model the multiscale processes. Biology provides numerous illustrations of molecular, mesoscale, and system-scale complexity that has evolved to perform functions critical to life, such as multistep reactions. Yet harnessing complexity to achieve functionality remains one of the grand challenges of modern science.

This workshop will review the current understanding of complexity in a broad range of basic science areas and identify the key knowledge gaps. The major goal for the workshop will be to identify how the control of complex systems could have transformational societal impact, and we will develop a vision for a new kind of collaborative research environment in the proposed Charter Hill laboratories that could achieve this goal. The concepts and ideas will be collected for a short workshop report that will inform the Charter Hill planning committee's development of a scientific vision for the materials and chemistry campus.

The workshop will be held on two mornings in December:

December 8^th

The first morning of the workshop will establish the breadth and frontiers of current research in complex systems and identify ambitious goals.

Breakout Session 1: Scientific frontiers in complex materials, chemical, biological, and environmental systems

What are the examples, challenges, and opportunities in disciplinary fields and at the interfaces between fields? Invited 5-minute presentations and discussions may include:

• Dynamics of biological and ecological systems subjected to environmental forcings

• Rules and products of hierarchical self-assembly across many fields

• Complexity from interfacial phenomena dictating bulk properties

Breakout Session 2: Designing and manipulating complex systems for desired functions

What major societal goals could be achieved by designing function from complexity? Invited 5-minute presentations and discussions may include:

• How do we control information flow and energy transfer in complex systems?

• What are the benefits of complexity for achieving chemical transformations?

• What are the inspirations from biology and the differences between living and abiotic complex systems?

December 15^th

The second morning workshop will develop a vision for a new kind of research environment that will be needed to achieve the ambitious goals established in the first workshop.

Breakout Session 3: Next generation approaches for studying and simulating complex systems

How can Charter Hill advance the science of complex systems? The talks and discussions will focus on new concepts for integrated research

• How do structures on one length scale determine properties on different scales?

• What areas of science must be united to control complexity?

Breakout Session 4: Anchor concepts for Charter Hill

How can Charter Hill advance the science of complex systems? The talks and discussions will focus on new concepts for integrated research.

• How do structures on one length scale determine properties on different scales?

• What areas of science must be united to control complexity?

Report Writing Session: Capturing the science cases and Anchor Concepts