by Barney Ricca, Ph.D.

The Society for Chaos Theory, Psychology, and Life Sciences (SCTPLS) is an interdisciplinary organization that explores nonlinear dynamics in a wide variety of disciplines. SCTPLS is one of the oldest organizations dedicated to the advancement of nonlinear dynamics in these fields and has helped to bring nonlinear dynamics more into the mainstream of scientific thought. Since 1991 they have held an Annual Conference, and the 2025 conference is being hosted in Colorado Springs by the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience (LHIHR). Each year this conference brings together an international slate of researchers across many disciplines; the 2024 conference included researchers from industrial engineering, education, psychiatry, philosophy of science, economics, and anesthesiology, to name some of the fields represented.

Dr. Chip Benight, the Executive Director of the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience (the Institute), is serving as the local host for this event, and he is joined on the conference committee by Dr. Barney Ricca, Research Associate Professor at the Institute, who is the current President of SCTPLS. Their roles are to coordinate the local logistics, help to identify keynote speakers, and provide other assistance to the conference committee. In addition, Dr. Ricca will be giving the annual President’s Address during the meeting, after which, he will turn the office over to the President-Elect, Dr. Adam Kiefer of the University of North Carolina.