Summer Program
New Challenges in Nanoscale Biophysics
June 15–July 6, 2025
Organizers:
Joshua Shaevitz, Princeton University
Allison Squires, University of Chicago
Randall Goldsmith, University of Wisconsin Madison
This workshop will connect biophysicists across experiment, theory, and computation to identify the most important outstanding questions in nanoscale biophysical systems, and to chart a roadmap for development and infusion of new nanoscale measurement technologies that will enable breakthroughs in these areas. The workshop will be organized around 4-5 “frontier challenges” in biophysics. Topic areas will include: (1) label-free techniques for nanoscale sensing and imaging, (2) understanding the physics of crowded intracellular environments, (3) measuring and controlling energy transfer at the nanoscale, (4) AI for analysis of rich data sets from nanoscale systems, and (5) understanding how signaling cascades and other collective system-wide effects bridge from nano- to micron- and larger scales of biology.
Summer Workshops
The summer program, running for 16 weeks from late-May to mid-September, emphasizes exciting open problems at the cutting edge. Two or three concurrent workshops, each with a specific focus selected for timeliness and the potential for breakthroughs and of two to five weeks in length, establish the main themes of each week, with twelve or thirteen different workshops each summer, balanced across fields including particle physics, string theory, astrophysics and hard and soft condensed matter physics, as well as emerging areas including biological physics, ultra-cold atom physics, quantum information, and physical mathematics. Additional researchers participate in small working groups or as individual researchers. This framework is designed to maximize informal interactions and free discussion within each area and to promote cross-fertilization between different areas via the common language of theoretical physics. Participation in the summer program of the Aspen Center for Physics is by application and subsequent invitation only. View past workshops.
