Abstract

Abstract: Developing a precise, quantitative, predictive science of complex natural systems looms as the most active, important branch of science this century. Such a science is vital to understanding the biosphere, climate change, future food and water security, and the threat of a global pandemic, and that science could underpin a revolution in our understanding of living systems, medicine, and health. It will require new kinds of scientists to develop a new kind of natural science, and both will depend critically on radically new kinds of computational methods and tools to enable scientists to build and test dynamic, predictive models of complex natural systems, integrate them with data and experiments, and publish and share models, data, and results. This, in turn, demands new kinds of software environments to support this new kind of computational science, led by new kinds of computational scientists.

A unique collaboration between scientists and software engineers in Microsoft Research’s Computational Science Group in Cambridge is pioneering the development of these new software environments. This talk will give a short introduction into the research on tools & technologies for new kinds of science we conduct.