First-Ever NetLogo Conference Comes to Chicago
The first-ever NetLogo user conference for both researchers and K-12 teachers runs June 29 to July 1 in Chicago at the University of Illinois at Chicago, bringing together the diverse communities of NetLogo users and agent-based modelers to share, learn, and make connections.
NetLogo, a free software tool, lets researchers, teachers, artists, and students simulate the behavior of complex systems, ranging from ant colonies, traffic jams, disease outbreaks, or economic markets. Users program the individual "agents" within them and watch what happens when they all interact.
NetLogo's creator, Northwestern University professor Uri Wilensky, who recently won the prestigious Yidan Prize for his work developing it, will be one of three keynote speakers. The others include professor Josh Epstein, founding director of the New York University Agent-Based Modeling Laboratory, and Professor Moira Zellner, director of participatory modeling and data science at Northeastern University.
Workshops cover everything from using AI to help write and modify models, to block-based programming for younger students, to a session on generative art.
On the research side, workshops explore the nuts and bolts of good modeling: how to test your code for errors, run sensitivity analyses, and connect models to real-world geographic data. There's even a session on weaving large language models into agent behavior — letting the AI agents inside a simulation tap into ChatGPT-style reasoning on the fly.
The conference will also hand out informal awards for top research posters, workshops and models. New modelers can get their work-in-progress reviewed by experienced ones in small-group "new modeler forums."