Every odd year, dynamical systems aficionados from around the world descend upon Snowbird, Utah for the SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems. This year, the meeting generated outstanding breadth and depth in both modern and classical fields of dynamical systems. I learned about some great new ideas in the areas of pattern formation, collective motion and nonlocal dynamical systems.

Like many who attend, I reconnected with old friends and colleagues at Snowbird and these connections reignited old projects and started new ones. For many with whom I spoke, these face-to-face connections and conversations are the main reason that people are motivated to return every two years to this beautiful but isolated locale. Despite the ease with which technology these days can help us connect with our collaborators, I always find that a few hours of back-and-forth in person advance projects far quicker. The talks, invited or otherwise, were great. Andrea Bertozzi gave an engaging reminder that mathematics can make important contributions to understanding and preventing crime. John Guckenheimer gave a tour-de-force Juergen Moser Lecture, covering 1-D maps, numerical bifurcation, and incorporating experimental data into our dynamical systems models.

A quick shot of the all-too-short coffee break and networking at Snowbird 2015. Photo credited to Shibabrat Naik.

Snowbird is also a great place to watch dynamical systems trends in real time. Dynamical systems really is a dynamic subject. A quick perusal of the conference program or app showed a preponderance of network talks. This perception was substantiated by a simple text analysis culling for only mathematical content. The corpus of abstracts reveals that the terms “network” (used 245 times) and “networks” (239) were more frequent than “nonlinear” (204) and “equations” (154). Even the namesake phrase “dynamical systems” (114) was far behind in use and only keywords like “model” (503), “dynamics” (469) and “systems” (444) were better represented. The field of complex dynamics, an area I spent a good part of my early graduate years thinking about, was underrepresented, with terms like “fractal” (6), “Julia” (4), “fatou” (0), and “Mandelbrot” (0) having low frequencies.

It’s easy to dismiss this trend because the first two days of Snowbird coincided with the workshop on network science (NS15), but it wasn’t clear to me which was the chicken and which was the egg. Dynamical systems on networks is a burgeoning field with a significant number of interesting problems and applications, from more classical neuronal network models to social networks.

All told, it was another great Snowbird visit for me. The two poster sessions were as enjoyable as ever and the great work of young researchers is highlighted in the Red Sock awards article in this issue, which I encourage you to explore. I am already looking forward to seeing what trends continue for DS17 and, of course, networking!

David Uminsky