2026 Blavatnik Science Symposium
The New York Academy of Sciences
115 Broadway, New York, NY
July 13, 2026
8:15 AM Registration and Breakfast
9:00 AM Welcome Remarks
SESSION I: From Molecular Synthesis to Sustainable Solutions
9:15 AM Removing PFAS from North Carolina's Waters
Frank Leibfarth, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
9:30 AM Sustainable Developments Using Plant Nanocellulose
Priyanka Sharma, PhD, Western Michigan University
9:45 AM Harnessing Radicals To Enable Unconventional Chemistry
David Nagib, PhD, The Ohio State University
10:00 AM Q&A
10:20 AM Coffee Break
SESSION II: Hacking Reality: Energy, Waves, and Perception
10:40 AM Keynote Speaker
Intersections of AI, Photonics, and Scientific Discovery
Marin Soljačić, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
11:10 AM Leveraging Chemistry and Processing to access Polymer Architectures for Next Generation Technologies
Emily Pentzer, PhD, Texas A&M University
11:25 AM Keynote Speaker (Virtual)
Press Start to Learn: Action Video Games and the Science of Skill Transfer
Daphné Bavelier, PhD, University of Geneva
11:55 AM Q&A
12:15 PM Lunch
SESSION III: Biological Identity in Cells, Tissues, and Populations
1:20 PM Molecular Signatures in Autism: Searching for Insights in Postmortem Brain Tissue
Tomasz Nowakowski, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
1:35 PM Epigenetic Memories
Roberto Bonasio, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
1:50 PM Resilience and Repair: Cellular Communication in Tissue Biology
Valerie Horsley, PhD, Yale University & Yale School of Medicine
2:05 PM Measuring the Impact of Human Genetics Online Across 25 Years: From Wikipedia
Synthesis to Genetic Essentialism
Sohini Ramachandran, PhD, Brown University
2:20 PM Q&A
2:40 PM Coffee Break
SESSION IV: The Mathematics of Computation: Geometry, Approximation, and Learning at Scale
2:55 PM Keynote Speaker
Sparsest Cut
Assaf Naor, PhD, Princeton University
3:25 PM Hardness of Approximation: From the PCP Theorem to the 2-to-2 Games Theorem
Subhash Khot, PhD, IBM Research and New York University
3:40 PM Keynote Speaker
The Fiction Machine
Léon Bottou, PhD, Flatiron Institute
4:10 PM Q&A
4:30 PM Coffee Break
4:45 PM A Fireside Chat with Ian Bogost
Moderator:
President & CEO, The New York Academy of Sciences
Featured Speaker:
Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
Contributing Writer, The Atlantic
5:30 PM Networking Reception
6:30 PM Adjourn Day 1
July 14, 2026
8:15 AM Breakfast & Networking
9:00 AM Opening Remarks
Session V: Reading the Restless Universe Across Space and Time
9:05 AM Keynote Speaker
Vision to Reality: How Cosmic Synergies Quietly Reshape Science
Szabolcs Márka, PhD, Columbia University
9:35 AM Finding Dark Matter in the Sky
Charlie Conroy, PhD, Harvard University
9:50 AM Mining the Transient Sky in the New Era of Time Domain Multi-Messenger Investigations
Raffaella Margutti, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
10:05 AM Q&A
10:25 AM Coffee Break
SESSION VI: Designing Dynamic Matter
10:45 AM Beyond Idealized Models: Structure and Function in Metal Nanoparticles
Sara Skrabalak, PhD, Indiana University
11:00 AM Water-Responsive Materials for Evaporation Energy Harvesting
Xi Chen, PhD, City University of New York (CUNY) Advanced Science Research Center
11:15 AM Molecular Level Design of Dynamic Chemical Systems
Sergey Semenov, PhD, Weizmann Institute of Science
11:30 AM Talk Title TBD
Andrea Alù, PhD, City University of New York
11:45 AM Q&A
12:05 PM Lunch
SESSION VII: Neural Sensing, Signaling, and Response
1:15 PM Keynote Speaker
Watching the Brain Work
Adam Cohen, PhD, Harvard University
1:45 PM A Gut-Brain Axis Controlling Blood Feeding in Mosquitoes
Laura Duvall, PhD, Columbia University
2:00 PM From Nerves to Nodules: How Do Sensory Nerves Fuel Metastasis?
Veena Padmanaban, PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
2:15 PM Q&A
2:35 PM Closing Remarks
2:40 PM Adjourn Day 2
