Alessandro Vespignani is an Italian American physicist whose research sits at the intersection of computational modeling, data science, and complex systems, with a focus on contagion phenomena, collective behavior, and epidemic preparedness. He trained in theoretical physics in Rome, held postdoctoral posts at Yale and Leiden, and later worked at the International Center for Theoretical Physics and Indiana University before joining Northeastern University, where he is the Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Computer Sciences, and Health Sciences. He directs Northeastern’s Network Science Institute and MOBS Laboratory, serves as President of the ISI Foundation in Turin, Italy, and helps lead EpiStorm, a CDC initiative that models and forecasts epidemics. In this wide-ranging InterDialogue, Vespignani traces network science’s shift from foundational theory toward urgent, data-driven application, and discusses the community, funding, and technological forces behind that growth. He makes the case for science as a collective, interdisciplinary effort—increasingly recognized by policymakers and the public—and walks through his own path from theoretical physics in Rome, through Yale, Leiden, and the ICTP, to the landmark papers and books that helped define the fields of complex networks and computational epidemiology. The conversation turns to Vespignani’s public health work over the last two decades—including CDC forecasting through FluSight and EpiStorm, and his team’s recent role in the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—and to what differentiates outbreaks like COVID-19, influenza, and Zika. We close on the erosion of public trust in science, the broad work being done at institutions he leads at Northeastern and at ISI Foundation, and how artificial intelligence is reshaping the scientific enterprise. Timestamps 0:00 – Introduction 2:20 – The growing urgency of network science 5:58 – From toy models to real-world data 8:56 – Data, community, and funding as growth drivers 13:19 – Science as a collective,...

Over the past two decades, complexity science has matured from its origins as a small, largely esoteric subfield of theoretical statistical physics and mathematics into an expansive area of inquiry that bridges disciplines and addresses some of the world’s most acute interconnected challenges.  Nowhere has this interdisciplinary, applied process become more apparent than with the ongoing convergence of complexity and health.  This convergence is happening at all scales—individual and collective, private and public—across approaches to prevention, treatment, management, and containment in integrative and public health spaces, as well as through applied research and innovation. “Our methodological approach goes on and on down to the level of microbiology and finally finding cures for many diseases,” says Italian American physicist and complex networks scientist Alessandro Vespignani. “All that goes through networks and through a vision that has complex systems at the core. Network science is a way to approach complex systems,” Vespignani explained from within Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute, where he serves as director, leads the Laboratory for the Modeling of Biological and Socio-technical Systems (MOBS) lab, and heads several impactful public health initiatives. “We look at elements and their interactions, and we do not get rid of nonlinear phenomena, feedback loops, et cetera, that exist in real world systems; we need to consider those,” Vespignani continues. “And in that sense, there is even more urgency in the work that we as a community do to respond to those challenges and to be of service to the society.” Explore the full InterDialogue with Alessandro Vespignani. The COVID-19 pandemic served as a critical moment of applied research and broad engagement with public health policy for those, like Vespignani, who work at the interface of complexity and health. But theoretical research and its translation into experiments and action began several years prior and...

Jordi Soriano Fradera is a Spanish physicist and Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Barcelona, where he leads the Neurophysics Group and serves as vice-director of the university’s Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS). He earned his PhD in condensed matter physics at the University of Barcelona before completing postdoctoral research in developmental biology in Germany and in neuroscience at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. For more than fifteen years, his group has developed in vitro neuronal cultures and biophysical models to study how connectivity and collective dynamics give rise to brain function, and how they break down in neurological disease. He has collaborated closely with medical teams on Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Sanfilippo, and Alzheimer’s disease, and coordinated research under the EU Horizon 2020 NEU-CHiP project on biological computing. In this InterDialogue, recorded in Soriano’s lab among live neuronal cultures and imaging equipment, we trace his path from studying fluid fronts in porous media as a condensed matter physicist to a twenty-year career in neurophysics. We discuss how his group engineers rat and human stem-cell-derived neuronal cultures to model the brain’s structural and functional connectivity and to serve as disease models for Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Sanfilippo, and Alzheimer’s, the prospects and limits of cell transplantation and personalized medicine, and why Soriano estimates a twenty-year horizon before such approaches reach the clinic. We also discuss his work on network damage, resilience, and criticality in neuronal cultures, the NEU-CHiP project’s attempt to train living neurons to perform computation, neuromorphic chips that mimic neurons in silicon, and a striking experiment in which donated human brain tissue was made to play back a melody fed to it through a robotic piano. We close by considering the ethical stakes of coupling neuronal cultures with robots and augmented-human technologies, Soriano’s efforts to help build neuroscience...

Javier Buldú is a Spanish physicist and complexity scientist whose research spans complex networks, nonlinear dynamics, neuroscience, and sports analytics. He leads the Complex Systems Group at the King Juan Carlos University in Madrid and has held research positions at institutions including the Spanish Astrobiology Center and the University of Oxford. Buldú has also played a prominent role in building the international complex systems community through initiatives such as the Latin American Conference on Complex Networks (LANET), the Interdisciplinary Group of Complex Systems in Madrid, and the Sicómoro Foundation–URJC Chair in Complex Systems. In this InterDialogue, we trace Buldú’s intellectual journey from his early work on chaos, synchronization, and laser-based communication systems to his pioneering contributions to network science. We discuss his research on general complex networks, functional brain networks, Alzheimer’s disease, and the emerging field of “networks of networks,” exploring how competing and cooperating systems can be modeled across scales ranging from neuroscience to economics and international relations. We then turn to Buldú’s influential work applying complexity science to football, examining how advances in data collection, tracking technologies, and artificial intelligence are transforming both sports analytics and network research more broadly. He explains how professional sports provide an unprecedented laboratory for studying collective behavior and spatial networks, and how insights derived from sports data may ultimately inform the study of many other complex systems. We also discuss science communication, the future of complexity science, the development of network science in Latin America, and the opportunities and challenges posed by AI in scientific research. Finally, Buldú reflects on the personal side of scientific life, including his passion for long-distance motorcycle travel and the role it plays in maintaining balance and perspective. Timestamps 0:00 – Introduction 2:42 – From laser chaos to network science 6:29 – Brain networks, synchronization, and Alzheimer’s...

Ciro Cattuto is an Italian physicist and complexity scientist whose work explores the intricate relationships between human behavior and digital technologies. Since 2008, he has served as Scientific Director of the ISI Foundation, based in Turin, Italy. He is also the founder and principal investigator of the Sociopatterns Collaboration. Throughout his career, Cattuto has held a range of influential research, fellowship, advisory, and board positions in Italy, the United States, and Japan. In this thought-provoking InterDialogue, we trace Cattuto’s intellectual journey from theoretical solid-state physics into complex systems science, a multicultural path that unfolded across three continents. We also discuss his contributions to data science and complex network research, including his work on some of the first digital social networks. We then examine what it means to conduct interdisciplinary research and how such collaborations can be cultivated more effectively. Cattuto also draws on his experience at the intersection of complex networks and epidemiology as a case of interdisciplinary bridge-building in practice. We further discuss the research priorities and guiding principles of the ISI Foundation, especially in relation to its current focus on computational social science and opportunities for policy impact. Finally, we reflect on both the promise and the profound challenges associated with the growing integration of artificial intelligence into scientific research and society more broadly. Timestamps 1:41 – Cattuto’s background and trajectory in complex systems science 9:19 – ISI as a hub of European complex systems science 11:46 – Interdisciplinary collaborations at ISI 14:38 – Interdisciplinarity and institutional funding frameworks 16:52 – Interdisciplinarity across generational, disciplinary, and national boundaries 19:36 – Computational social science and other interdisciplinary research areas at ISI 24:06 – Translating research into policy and governance 25:26 – Social science contributions to AI and computational research 27:36 – Studying complex systems using AI 29:59 – Challenges...

Ram Ramaswamy is an Indian physicist whose work cuts across disciplinary boundaries. A leading complex systems scientist, his research has largely centered on nonlinear dynamics, statistical physics, and computational biology. After earning his PhD from Princeton University, he returned to India, first joining the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research before spending most of his career at Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he was part of both the School of Physical Sciences and the School of Computational and Integrative Sciences until his retirement in 2018. He later served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad and has held numerous visiting and honorary professorships. Currently, he is an honorary professor in the Department of Physical Sciences at IISER Berhampur and holds the D. D. Kosambi Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Goa. Ramaswamy is a fellow of the World Academy of Sciences and a fellow and former president of the Indian Academy of Sciences, where he also founded the journal Dialogue: Science, Scientists and Society. Across his career, he has consistently championed academic freedom and more inclusive, equitable approaches to science education. In this wide-ranging InterDialogue, we discuss Ramaswamy’s contributions to chaos theory, self-organized criticality, and the synchronization of stochastic systems, along with his influential role in shaping nonlinear science in India. The conversation also explores the broader social responsibilities of scientists, particularly within public universities, including teaching, mentorship, and public communication. We delve into his sustained efforts to advance gender equity in Indian science, beginning with Lilavati’s Daughters, a landmark volume he co-edited featuring the voices of nearly one hundred women scientists. Other topics include improving accessibility in science education for students with disabilities and his current work on a biography of the influential Indian thinker D. D. Kosambi. The discussion opens with reflections on the importance of public...