To honor the founding Chairman of the CNLS External Advisory Committee, the Mark Kac Annual Memorial Lecture Series was established in 1985 as a fitting and continuing tribute to his lifelong commitment, not only to the pursuit of scientific research of the highest quality, but also to the broad dissemination of the results of this research.

2019 Nigel Goldenfeld, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

• The Life and Death of Turbulence

2016 Jose Onuchic, Rice University

• A Transferrable Model for Chromatin Folding
  4:00pm Tuesday, November 15, 2016, CNLS Conference Room
• The Genetics and Biophysics of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT): Can Theory Help Cancer Biology?
  2:00pm Wednesday, November 16, 2016, MSL Auditorium

2015 Mehran Kardar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• A Plethora of Fluctuation-Induced Forces
  1:15pm Monday, April 20, 2015, Physics Auditorium
• Levitation by Casimir Forces?
  1:30pm Tuesday, April 21, 2015, CNLS Conference Room
• Some Out of Equlibrium Fluctuation-Induced Phenomena
  1:30pm Wednesday, April 22, 2015, CNLS Conference Room

2014 Susan Coppersmith, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Investigation of a Quantum Adiabetic Algorithm for Search Engine Ranking
  Thursday, April 24, 2014, Physics Auditorium
• Progress Towards Quantum Dot Spin Qubits in Silicon
  Monday, April 28, 2014, CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)
• A Hybrid Spin-Change Quantum Dot Qubit in Silicon
  Monday, April 28, 2014, CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)

2013 Joe Pedlosky, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

• The Structure of the Oceanic Thermocline and the Equatorial Undercurrent
  Monday, April 15, 2013, Physics Auditorium
• Baroclinic Instability and the Meandering of Ocean Currents, Chaos and Associated Spatial Contraction
  Wednesday, April 17, 2013, CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)
• The Circulation around Islands and Kelvin’s Theorem
  Thursday, April 18, 2013, CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)

2012 Paul Chaikin, New York University

• Classical Wigner Crystals on Flat and Curved Surfaces, Topological Defects, 'Pleats' and Particle
  Monday, May 7, 2012, Physics Auditorium
• Self-Replication Without Life
  Tuesday, May 8, 2012, Physics Auditorium
• Random Organization: Irreversibility & Collisions, a Dynamic Phase Transition
  Wednesday, May 9, 2012, CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)

2011 Subir Sachdev, Harvard University

• Quantum Criticality
  Tuesday, May 3, 2011
• The phase diagrams of the high temperature superconductors
  Wednesday, May 4, 2011
• Gauge-gravity duality and its applications
  Thursday, May 5, 2011

2010 Robert Austin, Princeton University

• Tilting at Windmills
  Monday, May 24, 2010
• Stretch Genes
  Tuesday, May 25, 2010
• The Physics of Cancer
  Wednesday, May 26, 2010

• Mechanical Deformation of Glassy Solids: Why Structural Engineers Need New Ideas in Non-equilibrium Physics
  Monday, March 9, 2009
• The Mysterious Glass Transition
  Tuesday, March 10, 2009
• What is the Temperature of a Deforming Glass?
  Wednesday, March 11, 2009

• Atoms and Ions; Universality, Singularity and Particularity: On Boltzmann's Vision a Century Later
  Monday, March 17, 2008
• Valency in Ionic Criticality: Field Theory fails, Simulation reports, Chemistry reveals
  Tuesday, March 18, 2008
• Charge Correlations in a Near-critical Plasma: Simulations challenge theory
  Wednesday, March 19, 2008

• Crystallography on Curved Surfaces: Virus Buckling and Grain Boundary Scars (video)
• Non-Hermitian Luttinger Liquids and Vortex Physics
• Neutral Mutations and Gene Surfing in Microorganisms

• The Theory of Glasses
• Recent Suceesses of the Energy Landscape Theory of Protein Folding
• Quantum Many Body Chaos: Energy Flow in Molecules

• Excellence in Computer Simulations
• Making a Splash; Breaking a Neck
• Loewner Evolution: Maps and Shapes in Two Dimensions

• Topological Quantum Numbers
• Quantized vortices in superfluids and superconductors
• Dynamics in the presence of noise: How special is the Boltzmann distribution

• Fifteen Years After the Discovery of Superconductivity in the Cuprates
• On the Macroscopic Superconductivity s- and d-wave Symmetry in Cuprate SuperConductors

• Neurobiology as a Dynamical Systems: Introduction to 'Neural' Computing
• Perception in a World Made of 'Objects'
• Collective Oscillations and Effective Computing Primitives: What is a Moment

• Turbulent Heat Transport in Fluids Heated from Below
• Pattern Formation Near Onset of Rayleigh-Benard Convection: Some Simple Unexplained Results
• Critical Phenomena Near Bifurcations in Systems Far From Equilibrium

• Ballistic Missile Defense
• Nuclear Power

• Atiyah-Siner Index Theorem and Its Recent Applications

• Staryoli Waves in the Natural Sciences
• Patterns of Propogating Pulses
• Waves of Solar Activity
• Bifurcation of Species

• Wave Propogation
• Semiclassical Mechanics
• Nonreflecting Boundary Conditions

• Topics in Nonequilibrium Pattern Formation: Spatiotemporal Chaos
• Fluctuations and Noise in Pattern Forming Systems
• Nonlinear Waves and Coherent Structures in the Complex Ginzburg-Landau Equation in One Dimension

• Some Special Questions of Spectral Theory and Integrable Systems

• Rhythms and Clues: Mathware for Wetware: Chains of Oscillators and Undulatory Swimming
• Rhythms and Clues, Geometry and Biophysics: Which Differences Make a Difference?
• A Geometric View of Singular Perturbations: Case Studies

• Observations of Chaos and Pattern Formation: Laboratory Model of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter
• Observations of Chaos and Pattern Formation: Chemical Pinwheels, Spirals and Crystals
• Observations of Chaos and Pattern Formation: Instabilities and Turbulence in Flow between Concentric Rotating Cylinders

• Nonlinear Optics

• Poincare, Celestial Mechanics, Dynamical Systems Theory and Chaos
• Can Dynamical Systems Approach Turbulence?

• Nonlinear Dynamics of Interacting Waves: Symmetry and Multiple Bifurcations
• Transport Processes and Flow Patterns in Convecting Fluids
• Pattern Formation at the Liquid/Solid Interface

• The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam Problem: Past Becomes the Future: Paradox Becomes Discovery
• What is Chaos, That We Should Be Mindful of It?
• Chaos: Solving the Unsolvable; Predicting the Unpredictable!

• From Determinism to Chance and Back Again: Microscopic and Macroscopic Time Evolutions