Place: University of Chicago Center in Delhi, DLF Capitol Point Building, Connaught Place, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, New Delhi
Dates: Mon, March 30 – Wed, April 1, 2026
Organizers: Andrew Ferguson (UChicago), Srikanth Sastry (JNCASR)
Workshop Scope
Glassy behavior is a generic feature of a wide range of disordered materials ‒ from structural glasses to soft materials to biomolecular assemblies ‒ characterized by complex and slow relaxation processes and processing history-dependent materials properties. These features can be understood in terms of the rugged energy landscapes with multiple locally stable states and the crossing of barriers between them. Computational investigations of these systems demand new approaches to enhanced sampling and exploration of their configuration space. Glasses as materials exhibit a rich property-composition-processing space, the exploration of which poses significant challenges, but also the opportunity to engineer materials of important technological relevance with unique properties. This workshop will explore approaches to harnessing advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning to address open challenges in understanding and engineering glasses, and relate them to advances in a broader context, including new approaches to investigating rare events.
Location and Venue
The workshop will be held at the University of Chicago Center in Delhi, located in the heart of Delhi at the DLF Capitol Point Building in Connaught Place, on Baba Kharak Singh Marg, New Delhi. The Center occupies 17,500 square feet, comprising space for seminars and conferences, as well office space for faculty, staff and student study areas.
Financial Support
The workshop is co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Provost’s Global Faculty Awards and CECAM-US-CENTRAL, the first CECAM node in the United States, and will be held at the University of Chicago Center in Delhi. There are no registration fees for this event. We are pleased to be able to offer limited financial support to defray the costs of travel and accommodation.
Organizers
Srikanth Sastry, JNCASR sastry@jncasr.ac.in
Andrew Ferguson UChicago andrewferguson@uchicago.edu
Administrative Support
Devnidhi Joshi, UChicago Delhi Center delhifacilities@uchicago.edu
Senior Invited Speakers
Aaron Dinner (UChicago)
Anand Srivastava (IISc)
Andrew Ferguson (UChicago)
Anoop Krishnan (IIT Delhi)
Ashwin Sampangiraj (GITAM)
Divya Nayar (IIT Delhi)
Indrajit Tah (CGCRI)
Jagannath Mondal (TIFRH)
Neelanjana Sengupta (IISER Kolkata)
Rituparno Mandal (RRI)
Sanat Kumar (Columbia)
Sarika Bhattacharyya (NCL Pune)
Sayan Ranu (IIT Delhi)
Srikanth Sastry (JNCASR)
Suman Chakrabarty (SNBNCBS Kolkata)
Tarak Karmarkar (IIT Delhi)
Tarak Patra (IITM)
Junior Invitees Posters and Lightning Talks
Raghav Mathur (IISc)
Dibyendu Maity (SNBNCBS Kolkata)
Hindol Chatterjee (IISER Kolkata)
Swarnendu Maity (JNCASR)
Sajid Mannan (IIT Delhi)
Sibasankar Panigrahy (IIT Delhi)
Subinoy Adhikari (TIFRH)
Neha (IITM)
Nikhil (IIT Delhi)
Raghav TS (RRI,JNCASR)
Schedule
**All invited talks are 30 mins + 15 mins discussion / Q&A.**
Zoom recording link (copy and paste into browser): https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/95584434573?pwd=r4yozyk157ZejUyX8C8Pb8ZrVazvAo.1
| Day 1 – Mon March 30, 2026 | |
| 9:00-9:20 | REGISTRATION AND TEA |
| 9:20-9:30 | WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS Andrew Ferguson (UChicago) Srikanth Sastry (JNCASR) Leni Chaudhuri (Executive Director, UChicago Center in Delhi) |
| 9:30-10:15 | Rituparno Mandal (RRI) “Learning in Disordered and Adaptable Matter” |
| 10:15-11:00 | Tarak Karmarkar (IIT Delhi) “Modelling Rare Events using Machine Learning Interatomic Potential-based Enhanced Sampling Simulations” |
| 11:00-11:30 | TEA BREAK |
| 11:30-12:15 | Sarika Bhattacharyya (NCL Pune) “Detecting the crystallization tendencies in binary supercooled liquids via machine learning techniques” |
| 12:15-13:00 | Indrajit Tah (CGCRI) “A Simple Structural Precursor of Glassy Dynamics: A Comparison with Machine Learning” |
| 13:00-14:00 | LUNCH |
| 14:00-14:45 | Andrew Ferguson (UChicago) “Gentlest Ascent Dynamics for Enhanced Sampling (GADES)” |
| 14:45-15:30 | Divya Nayar (IIT Delhi) “From Data to Design: Predicting and Engineering Heterogeneous Polymer–Surface Adhesion” |
| 15:30-16:00 | TEA BREAK |
| 16:00-17:00 | LIGHTNING TALKS (3-slides, 3-minutes) Raghav Mathur (IISc) Dibyendu Maity (SNBNCBS Kolkata) Hindol Chatterjee (IISER Kolkata) Raghav TS (RRI,JNCASR) Swarnendu Maity (JNCASR) Sajid Mannan (IIT Delhi) Sibasankar Panigrahy (IIT Delhi) Subinoy Adhikari (TIFRH) Neha (IITM) Nikhil (IIT Delhi) |
| Day 2 – Tue March 31, 2026 | |
| 9:00-9:30 | REGISTRATION AND TEA |
| 9:30-10:15 | Srikanth Sastry (JNCASR) “Seeing through glass failure: Prediction of fatigue failure in glasses from damage quantification and machine learning” |
| 10:15-11:00 | Anoop Krishnan (IIT Delhi) “End to end differentiable simulations for learning particle dynamics” |
| 11:00-11:30 | TEA BREAK |
| 11:30-12:15 | Aaron Dinner (UChicago) “Enhanced sampling for far-from-equilibrium systems and its analysis and acceleration with machine learning” |
| 12:15-13:00 | Tarak Patra (IITM) “Can Machine Learning Enable the Design of Adaptable Materials?” |
| 13:00-14:00 | LUNCH |
| 14:00-14:45 | Jagannath Mondal (TIFRH) “Kinetically Faithful Trajectory Synthesis Using Generative AI” |
| 14:45-15:30 | Ashwin Sampangiraj (GITAM) “What Bacteria Can Teach Us About LLMs: Criticality from Information Geometry” |
| 15:30-17:00 | TEA BREAK + POSTER SESSION |
| 18:00-20:30 | WORKSHOP DINNER Karigari Restaurant (https://maps.app.goo.gl/iffgzka2cjYVfqBu5) |
| Day 3 – Wed April 1, 2026 | |
| 9:00-9:30 | REGISTRATION AND TEA |
| 9:30-10:15 | Sayan Ranu (IIT Delhi) “A Graph Reinforcement Learning Approach to Optimize Atomic Structures on Rough Energy Landscapes” |
| 10:15-11:00 | Suman Chakrabarty (SNBNCBS Kolkata) “Navigating Pathways in Free Energy Landscape: Adaptive (Machine) Learning Strategies in Molecular Simulation” |
| 11:00-11:30 | TEA BREAK |
| 11:30-12:15 | Anand Srivastava (IISc) “Fold-switching metamorphic proteins as stimulus responsive nanomaterials: Unravelling the design principles using statistical thermodynamics and machine learning algorithms” |
| 12:15-13:00 | Sanat Kumar (Columbia) “Employing Machine Learning towards enunciating the underpinning science of some soft matter systems: An experimentalist’s perspective” |
| 13:00-14:00 | LUNCH |
| 14:00-14:45 | Neelanjana Sengupta (IISER Kolkata) “Pinpointing Origins of Elusive Conformational Transitions: Machine Learning Strategies” |
| 14:45-15:55 | OPEN DISCUSSION |
| 15:55-16:00 | CLOSING REMARKS Andrew Ferguson (UChicago) Srikanth Sastry (JNCASR) |