BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:icalendar-ruby CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Vienna BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260329T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3 TZNAME:CEST END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20261025T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10 TZNAME:CET END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1782725400@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20260629T113000 DTEND:20260629T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Julia Reisenbauer & Charles Roques-Carmes\nhosted by J ohannes Fink & Latha Venkataraman\nAbstract: Scaling Light\, Integrating M atter\, Imaging the NanoscaleModern photonic technologies increasingly rel y on the ability to control\, manipulate\, and process light within compac t and scalable integrated platforms. At the same time\, advances in functi onal and quantum materials are expanding the range of optical phenomena th at can be engineered on chip\, enabling new approaches to light generation \, detection\, nonlinear interactions\, and radiation sensing. As photonic circuits grow from a few elements to hundreds or thousands of reconfigura ble degrees of freedom\, they open new opportunities in imaging\, sensing\ , computing\, and quantum technologies.In this talk\, I will describe how my group at ISTA aims to build next-generation optoelectronic platforms by combining scalable photonics\, functional materials\, and advanced charac terization. I will first discuss programmable integrated photonic systems that manipulate partially coherent light on chip\, enabling new measuremen t modalities that would be difficult to realize in free space. I will then turn to the integration of emerging materials into nanophotonic devices\, with a focus on radiation-sensitive materials that can reshape how X-rays are converted into optical information. These platforms point toward nano photonic scintillators\, metasurface-enhanced radiation detectors\, and qu antum-optical approaches to high-energy imaging.Finally\, I will discuss t he microscopy tools we are developing to characterize these increasingly c omplex nanophotonic and nanomaterial systems. More broadly\, our goal is t o establish integrated photonics as a scalable physical platform for revea ling\, controlling\, and exploiting light-matter interactions across optic al\, quantum\, and high-energy regimes._______Reprogramming Enzymes to Cat alyze Non-native ReactionsEnzymes are Nature’s catalysts\, evolved to co nstruct and degrade molecules with remarkable efficiency and selectivity. Although their activities have been shaped by natural selection to fulfill specific biological functions\, many enzymes retain promiscuous catalytic activities toward non-native substrates and reactions. By leveraging fund amental concepts such as catalytic promiscuity and directed evolution\, we repurpose and engineer these enzymes for applications in synthetic chemis try and bioremediation\, enabling the degradation of emerging environmenta l contaminants while simultaneously expanding the accessible chemical spac e and introducing new reactions to the synthetic chemist’s toolkit. LOCATION:ISTA | Central Building | Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Julia Reisenbauer & Charles Roques-Carmes: Scaling Light\, Integrat ing Matter\, Imaging the Nanoscale & Reprogramming Enzymes to Catalyze Non -native Reactions URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6385 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1783495380@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20260708T092300 DTEND:20260708T092300 DESCRIPTION: LOCATION:Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Special Colloquium | Presentation of AURAS Survey Results URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6549 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1789983000@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20260921T113000 DTEND:20260921T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Lena Schwarz & Jiawei Bao\nhosted by Jorryt Matthee & Martin Hetzer\nAbstract: Lena Schwarz | Mapping Developmental Dynamics of Autism Spectrum DisorderMouse Models at Single-Cell ResolutionAutism spect rum disorder (ASD) is associated with a wide range of risk genes\, yet how distinct mutations lead to overlapping clinical features remains poorly u nderstood. ASD is also diagnosed more often in males than females\, but th e molecular basis of this sex disparity remains unclear.We used single-nuc leus multi-omics sequencing to simultaneously examine gene expression and chromatin accessibility in 251 samples from eleven monogenic ASD mouse mod els. The dataset included both sexes\, two brain regions\, and three devel opmental stages. Across models\, ASD-associated mutations delayed radial g lial cell progression and transiently affected neural lineage specificatio n. The strongest transcriptional alterations occurred during the perinatal period\, particularly in excitatory and inhibitory neurons. These changes included reduced expression of synaptic and ion-channel-related genes\, p otentially reflecting homeostatic adaptations. Although several molecular alterations were shared across models\, each mutation also produced a dist inct molecular signature.Convergence was most pronounced at the early post natal stage\, a putatively critical period of cortical maturation and refi nement. At later developmental stages\, the shared molecular processes  i ncreasingly diverged\, identifying the early postnatal period as a key win dow of ASD-related molecular vulnerability. We also observed marked sex-sp ecific effects\, with females frequently displaying broader transcriptiona l dysregulation and larger effect sizes than males.Overall\, our findings reveal dynamic\, developmentally regulated molecular consequences of genet ically diverse ASD-associated mutations. They identify both convergent and mutationspecific mechanisms\, emphasize the importance of sex-dependent e ffects\, and provide a comprehensive view of developmental cellular and mo lecular dynamics across models of ASD.____________________________________ ___________________________________________Jiawei Bao | The Pulsing of th e Tropical Climate SystemWeather forecasts keep us prepared for the week a head\, while climate projections warn us of long-term changes over coming decades. But what about the weeks and months in between? This middle groun d\, known as the subseasonal-to-seasonal timescale\, remains one of the mo st challenging frontiers in atmospheric science\, yet it is precisely the timescale that matters most for managing floods\, droughts\, and food secu rity. In this talk\, I will walk through how scientists predict weather a nd climate\, the tools and models involved\, and why the gap in between ha s proven so difficult to bridge. I will then introduce a newly discovered phenomenon in the tropics — the Tropics-Wide Intraseasonal Oscillation ( TWISO) — a coherent pulse that links tropical weather phenomena across t he globe\, not just within one region or system\, on timescales of weeks t o months. It looks as if the tropical climate system is pulsing together. By capturing signals that existing frameworks miss\, TWISO offers a promis ing new avenue for improving predictability in the tropics\, with potentia l benefits for communities most vulnerable to extreme weather. LOCATION:ISTA | Central Building | Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Lena Schwarz & Jiawei Bao: ISTA PostDoc Award URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6386 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1790240400@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20260924T110000 DTEND:20260924T120000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Prof. Yves Geerts\nhosted by Rafal Klajn\nAbstract: Lo uis Pasteur and Pierre Curie dreamed of directing chiral symmetry breaking using external magnetic and electric fields. [Chem. Rev. 1998\, 98\, 2391 ] Their attempts failed due to time-inversion symmetry\, theoretically exp lained by Laurence Barron. [JACS 1986\, 108\, 5539] Dissipative non-equili brium conditions break this symmetry and allow the separation of enantiome rs under the influence of erroneous chirality\, as recently demonstrated b y Ron Naaman and Francesco Tassinari. [Chem. Sci. 2019\, 10\, 5246. Cryst. Growth Des. [2021\, 21\, 2925] With my team\, we have undertaken a resear ch project to further our understanding by directing deracemization toward s R or S enantiomers using chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS). [Acc . Chem. Res.] [2020\, 53\, 2659] I will report on our latest results and t he prospects for realizing Pasteur and Curie's long-held dream. LOCATION:Seminar Room C | Moonstone\, ISTA ORGANIZER:hcai@ist.ac.at SUMMARY:Prof. Yves Geerts: Spin-directed Chiral Symmetry Breaking URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6579 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1790587800@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20260928T113000 DTEND:20260928T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Francesco Locatello\nhosted by Christoph Lampert\nAbst ract: Causality at Machine Learning Scale and ComplexityDistinguishing coi ncidence from cause-and-effect relationships is a central challenge in AI (and science): which patterns just co-occur\, and which signal causality? Statistical causality offers a rigorous framework for this question\, but it assumes clean\, low-dimensional\, structured data\, which clashes with the raw\, high-dimensional observations of machine learning applications\, including in science. In this talk\, I will present how we can now learn causal structure directly from unstructured data using deep learning\, bri dging between the modeling power of causality and the scalability properti es of machine learning. I will also highlight some cross-disciplinary coll aborations my group has built\, uniquely enabled by ISTA.  LOCATION:Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Francesco Locatello: Tenure Talk URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6548 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1791192600@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261005T113000 DTEND:20261005T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Friedrich Stricker & Yuval Wigderson\nhosted by Mikhai l Lemeshko\nAbstract: Friedrich Stricker |Beyond On/Off: Multistate Molecu les and MaterialsA slime mold with no brain and no nervous system can stil l remember: Physarum polycephalum reinforces the tubes of its cytoplasmic network along paths that once carried nutrient flow\, so a stimulus encoun tered minutes ago changes how the organism responds to a stimulus now. His tory is written directly into the material's structure. Synthetic material s have rarely matched this — not because they can't respond to a cue\, b ut because most are built to give one answer\, not many\, and to forget th e moment the stimulus is gone.At the root of that limitation is a simple f act about energy landscapes. In a binary switch\, a stimulus drives the sy stem along one path — on to off\, off to on — so the response is alway s the same regardless of how it got there. In a multistate system\, the sa me stimulus can drive the system along different paths depending on kineti cs\, local environment\, and history: the landscape stops being a fixed tw o-well problem and becomes something the material can be routed through.Ge tting there means tracing a single design logic across three length scales . At the molecular level\, multistate photoswitches give us control over k inetics\, absorption\, and mechanistic pathways — the raw vocabulary of reactivity. Organizing those switches within ordered\, multiphase material s – often liquid crystal elastomers – lets us govern how changes at th e molecular level propagate into changes in structural order. And by shapi ng how these material meet a stimulus — through its geometry — we conv ert molecular-scale reactivity into coordinated\, purposeful behavior at t he macroscale. Molecular design\, material organization\, and geometry are n't separate levers\; each constrains and amplifies the next\, and it's th is chain that lets us engineer function rather than just response.This cha in — molecule\, assembly\, geometry — is a first step toward a larger goal: materials in which a past stimulus leaves a physical trace that bias es the path taken by future stimuli\, built not from external control but from molecular architecture that intrinsically encodes state. Programming reactivity\, assembly\, and geometry together is how we move from isolated switches to physically intelligent\, multifunctional matter._____________ ___________________________________________________________________Yuval W igderson |Finding Structure in ChaosPareidolia refers to the human tenden cy to see patterns in unstructured chaos. Examples of pareidolia can range from the benign (seeing constellations in the night sky) to the destruct ive (gambling one's savings on the imagined patterns of a roulette wheel' s outcomes).However\, sometimes the patterns really are there! In fact\, in many cases\, we can prove this mathematically: no matter how complex an d chaotic a system may seem\, it must contain some given structure within it. In this talk\, I will give a gentle introduction to Ramsey theory\, th e fascinating area of mathematics that studies such theorems\, and discuss some of the major questions we still cannot answer. LOCATION:ISTA | Central Building | Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Friedrich Stricker & Yuval Wigderson: Inaugural Lecture URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6357 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:68498ab73a3db369081593@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261006T110000 DTEND:20261006T120000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Morten Kjaergaard\nhosted by Johannes Fink\nAbstract: I will discuss recent results from our lab on developing a tight control-a nd-feedback loop between rapid FPGA-based advanced logic and superconducti ng qubit control\, which enables qubit characterization\, optimization\, g ate benchmarking\, and parameter estimation on millisecond wall-clock time scales. I will introduce our work on a suite of sparse-sampling and on-FPG A inference methods\, including efficient estimators for exponential and s inusoidal response functions as well as on-FPGA implementations of NelderM ead optimization\, golden-section search and an adaptive Bayesian updating algorithm. With this approach\, we estimate T1 in a few milliseconds and find highly surprising dynamics at these rapid timescales\, we optimize re adout parameters in roughly 100 ms\, we optimize pulse amplitudes in 1 ms\ , we perform Clifford randomized benchmarking in 107 ms\, and sustain more than 74\,000 consecutive recalibrations during a 6-hour closed-loop run. These approaches enable in situ recalibration that can track evolving qubi t dynamics and enable new approaches to maximizing superconducting qubit p rocessor performance and reveal new physics of state-of-the-art quantum pr ocessors. LOCATION:Office Bldg West / Ground floor / Heinzel Seminar Room (I21.EG.101 )\, ISTA ORGANIZER:swiddman@ist.ac.at SUMMARY:Morten Kjaergaard: Superconducting qubit control on millisecond tim escales: from rapid feedback to new qubit dynamics URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6555 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1791797400@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261012T113000 DTEND:20261012T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Suvi Gezari Stock\nhosted by Zoltan Haiman LOCATION:Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Suvi Gezari Stock: Institute Colloquium | Suvi Gezari Stock URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6590 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1792402200@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261019T113000 DTEND:20261019T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Wilfrid Jean Louis\nhosted by AURAS\nAbstract: Wilfrid Jean Louis | AURAS Survey 2026: The PhD and Postdoc Experience at ISTATh e AURAS 2026 survey gathered feedback from more than 220 PhD students and postdocs at ISTA\, 45% of the institute’s PhD students participated. The survey explored different aspects of the experience at ISTA\, including r esearch and working environments\, workload and well-being\, teaching and courses\, career development\, workplace safety\, institutional support\, representation\, and track communities. In this colloquium\, AURAS will p resent the main findings of the survey\, highlighting both positive aspect s of the institute experience and areas where students and postdocs see op portunities for improvement. The presentation will also discuss difference s across tracks and identify themes that emerged across the institute as a whole. LOCATION:Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Wilfrid Jean Louis: Special Colloquium | AURAS | Wilfrid Jean Louis URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6614 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1794220200@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261109T113000 DTEND:20261109T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Lauren O'Connell\nhosted by Lora Sweeney\nAbstract: Ti tle | Lessons from Poison Frogs on Ecological Tuning of Animal Behavior a nd PhysiologyAbstract |Behavior and physiology are the substrates of natu ral selection. Our overarching goal is to understand how new traits in phy siology and social behavior have evolved from existing genetic and cellula r components using poison frogs as research organisms. First\, we want to understand how organisms evolve ways to evade predation by using natural p roducts that target the nervous system. Animals with a rich diversity of c hemical defenses must also protect their own nervous systems from toxicity . We recently discovered toxin sponge proteins that bind deadly toxins and transport them to specific locations in poison frogs. Such a system is ri pe for reverse engineering drug carriers to better understand how chemical defenses evolve. Second\, we want to understand how new social behaviors evolve through changes in nervous system function using a comparative\, or ganismal approach. We have established poison frog tadpoles as a model sys tem for infant social behavior\, where species have evolved new communicat ion and social behaviors based on their rearing environments. Together\, t hese research avenues are enabling us to understand the design principles of chemical defense and social behaviors. LOCATION:Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Lauren O'Connell: Lessons from Poison Frogs on Ecological Tuning of Animal Behavior and Physiology URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6550 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1794825000@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261116T113000 DTEND:20261116T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Vivian Kuperberg & Carla Fernandez-Rico\nhosted by Mik hail Lemeshko LOCATION:ISTA | Central Building | Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Vivian Kuperberg & Carla Fernandez-Rico: Inaugural Lecture | Vivian Kuperberg & Carla Fernandez-Rico URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6389 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:68498ab73a3f1770646428@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261117T110000 DTEND:20261117T120000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Sebastian Hofferberth\nhosted by Julian Léonard\nAb stract: TBA LOCATION:Office Bldg West / Ground floor / Heinzel Seminar Room (I21.EG.101 )\, ISTA ORGANIZER:sdolot@ist.ac.at SUMMARY:Sebastian Hofferberth: Quantum Colloquium | Sebastian Hofferberth URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6558 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1795429800@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261123T113000 DTEND:20261123T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Kim Modic\nhosted by Mikhail Lemeshko LOCATION:ISTA | Central Building | Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Kim Modic: Tenure Talk | Kim Modic URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6390 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1796639400@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261207T113000 DTEND:20261207T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Daniel Robert\nhosted by Scott Waitukaitis LOCATION:Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Daniel Robert: Institute Colloquium | Daniel Robert URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6551 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1797244200@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20261214T113000 DTEND:20261214T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Monika Visan & Simone Fatichi LOCATION:Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Monika Visan & Simone Fatichi: Inaugural Lecture | Monika Visan & S imone Fatichi URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6552 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260922T011843Z UID:1800268200@ist.ac.at DTSTART:20270118T113000 DTEND:20270118T123000 DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Lora Sweeney\nhosted by Mario de Bono LOCATION:ISTA | Central Building | Raiffeisen Lecture Hall\, ISTA ORGANIZER:diana.zubcevic@ista.ac.at SUMMARY:Lora Sweeney: Tenure Talk | Lora Sweeney URL:https://talks-calendar.ista.ac.at/events/6387 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR