In 1997, the Miller Institute broadened its charge with the addition of an Interdisciplinary Symposium. Our intention was to promote discussion of cutting-edge science among leading researchers through a weekend of scientific interaction and discussion. The Research Fellows were the catalyst behind this program and they helped to design it as a freewheeling discussion across all the sciences, including astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics and physics.
The Miller Institute's Annual Interdisciplinary Symposium takes place the first weekend of June annually and is held at the Marconi Conference Center on beautiful Tomales Bay in Marin County, California. Participation is by invitation only.
2024 Symposium Speakers & Symposium Program
Harmit Malik
Division of Basic Sciences
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
“Rules of engagement: molecular arms races between host and viral genomes”
Eric Neuscamman
Department of Chemistry
UC Berkeley / LBNL
“Losing electrons in crowds to predict a molecule's color”
Dianne Newman
Departments of Biology & Geobiology
Caltech
“Phenazines power an extremely slow bacterial maintenance state near life's metabolic edge”
Rachel Pepper
Departments of Physics & Biophysics
University of Puget Sound
“Hydrodynamic interactions of microscopic sessile suspension feeders with their environment”
Jonas Peters
Department of Chemistry
Caltech
“Avoiding Hydrogen and Getting Protons and Electrons to Where We Want Them Instead”
Mikhail Shapiro
Departments of Chemical Engineering & Medical Engineering
Caltech
“Talking to cells: biomolecular ultrasound for deep tissue cellular imaging and control”
Nicholas Swanson-Hysell
Earth and Planetary Science
UC Berkeley
“The onset of Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth and the drivers of long-term climate change”
Special Presenter: Mike Bostock
CEO & co-founder, Observable
“Never the right abstraction”
2023 Symposium Speakers & Symposium Program
Roger Blandford
Department of Astronomy
Stanford University
“The Unbeatable Rightness of Being: A Cosmic Ray Origin for Biological Homochirality””
Moon Duchin
Department of Mathematics
Tufts University
“Modeling civil rights”
Julius Lucks
Chemical and Biological Engineering
Northwestern University
“What is in our water? A journey from basic research to societal scale synthetic biology”
Isabel Montañez
Earth and Planetary Sciences
UC Davis
“The long and short of it: C cycling’s role in controlling climate of the past and into our future”
Piali Sengupta
Biology
Brandeis University
“Shaping Sensory Signaling: How cilia contribute to sensory neuron responses”
Nicola Spaldin
Materials Science
ETH Zurich“New Materials for a New Age”
William Tarpeh
Department of Chemical Engineering
Stanford University
“Electrochemical Wastewater Refining for Circular Chemical Manufacturing”
2022 Symposium Speakers & Symposium Program
Marla Feller
Molecular & Cell Biology and Neuroscience
University of California Berkeley
“The role of neural activity in wiring up the brain”
Venkatesan Guruswami
Computer Science and Mathematics
University of California Berkeley
“When and why do efficient algorithms exist (for constraint satisfaction and beyond)?”
Anette “Peko” Hosoi
Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics
MIT
“Sports, probability, and public policy”
Chung-Pei Ma
Astronomy and Physics
University of California Berkeley
“Black Holes: Singlets and Twins”
Becca Tarvin
Integrative Biology
University of California Berkeley
“Ecology and evolution of toxin resistance in animals”
Tadashi Tokieda
Mathematics
Stanford University
Paul Turner
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary biology
Yale University
“Leveraging evolutionary trade-offs and phage selection pressure to reduce bacterial pathogenicity”
2021 Symposium Speakers & Symposium Program
Ron Cohen
Chemistry and Earth & Planetary Science
University of California Berkeley
Miller Professor (2015-2016)
“Mapping urban emissions with neighborhood resolution”
Norman Yao
Physics
University of California Berkeley
Miller Fellow (2014-2017)
“What is a time crystal?”
Nicole King
Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California Berkeley
Miller Professor (2018-2019)
“A History of Hypotheses on the Origin of Animals”
Michael I. Jordan
Computer Science and Statistics
University of California Berkeley
Miller Professor (2008, 2017-2018)
Miller Senior Fellow (2019-Present)
“On Dynamics-Informed Blending of Machine Learning and Game Theory”
2019 Symposium Speakers & Symposium Program
Frances Arnold
Department of Chemical Engineering
Caltech
“Innovation by Evolution: Bringing New Chemistry to Life”
Elizabeth Barnes
Department of Atmospheric Science
Colorado State University
“The Music in the Noise: understanding atmospheric variability and change”
Yi Cui
Dept of Materials Science & Engineering
Stanford University
“Reinventing Batteries: What’s Possible?”
Jessica Lu
Department of Astronomy
University of California Berkeley
“Black Holes, Big and Small - A Laser-Guided Adaptive Optics View”
Sabeeha Merchant
Department of Molecular & Cell Biology / Department of Plant & Microbial Biology
University of California Berkeley
“Elemental economy in biology”
Terry Plank
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Columbia University
"At the Speed of Volcanic Eruptions"
Corina Tarnita
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary biology
Princeton University
“Self-organization and robustness in biological systems”
Symposium Speakers 2018 & Symposium Program
Richard Baraniuk
EECS
Rice University
"Going off the Deep End with Deep Learning"
Danna Freedman
Chemistry
Northwestern University
"Applying Inorganic Chemistry to Challenges in Physics"
Paula Hammond
Chemical Engineering
MIT
"Nanolayered Particles for Tissue Targeted Therapies"
David Julius
Physiology
University of California San Francisco
"Natural Products as Probes of the Pain Pathway: From Physiology to Atomic Structure"
Nergis Mavalvala
Physics
MIT
"Opening a new window into the Universe: the 100 year quest for Einstein’s gravitational waves"
Lior Pachter
Biology
Caltech
"The benefits of multiplexing"
Sarah Stewart
Earth & Planetary Sciences
UC Davis
"The Origin of the Earth and Moon"
Symposium Speakers 2017 & Symposium Program
Mike Brown
Caltech
"Planet Nine from Outer Space"
Paul Corkum
University of Ottawa
"Probed Quantum Systems on the Attosecond Time Scale"
Gilbert Holder
University of Illinois
"Mapping Dark Matter Using Light from the Edge of the Universe"
Laura Kiessling
University of Wisconsin - Madison
"Checking Cellular IDs with Glycans"
Lauren Meyers
University of Texas - Austin
"Networks, Data, and the Race against Global Pandemics"
Michael Nachman
UC Berkeley
"Gene Regulation and the Genetic Basis of Speciation and Adaptation in House Mice, Mus Musculus"
Christos Papadimitriou
UC Berkeley
"A Computer Scientist Thinks About the Brain"