February 2026 Update
Internal project progress, community highlights, and opportunities ahead
January and February have brought several developments across JOPRO’s internal projects and the broader ecosystem we operate within.
JOPRO Working Groups & Projects
A round up of the latest developments from within our in-house initiatives:
DigiNEST
The DigiNEST project, which launched in late 2025, continues to take shape under the stewardship of Avery Lim and Molly Kluck. We have been exploring the technologies, code environments, and tools that underpin the project’s prototyping efforts. In addition, we are examining best practices for working with and alongside large language models, with an eye toward what responsible and productive engagement looks like in practice. The discussion series continues to draw in people thinking seriously about narrativity, agency, and emerging digital environments.
FrontierMap + Field Guide
We have been advancing the FrontierMap methodology on several fronts. The FMap v1 preprint is in active development, formalizing the foundational three-step orientation process and its tiered output structure for researchers entering interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving fields. This work covers the pre-LLM version of the methodology, with a companion FMap v2 addressing LLM-augmented extensions to follow.
Alongside this, a related project has been taking shape: A Field Guide to the Futures Ecosystem: Mapping Organizations, Movements, and Intellectual Currents (working title). A limited preview and preliminary working paper will be made available on OSF. The Field Guide applies mapping principles developed through FrontierMap to chart the broader ecosystem of organizations shaping technological futures.
Futures Center
Both FrontierMap and the Field Guide will find their formal institutional home in the JOPRO Futures Center, which will launch later this year. The Center will serve as a dedicated space for long-horizon research, exploratory projects, and the kind of upstream orientation work that tends to get crowded out during periods of rapid technological acceleration.
Internship and research assistant opportunities connected to the Futures Center will be posted in the coming weeks.
Mental Health Paradigms and Perspectives
Two threads within the MHPP working group are developing simultaneously. Jen Jiang is leading the Modernizing Mental Health Discussion Series, bringing together practitioners, researchers, and community members to interrogate prevailing frameworks and explore more integrated approaches.
Hadassa Bogatean has initiated a complementary project on Visualizations and Phenomenology around Mental Health Models, asking how we represent and communicate inner experience in research and clinical contexts.
Data x Direction
The 2025 Data x Direction Cohort is wrapping up their respective projects. Congratulations are in order for our interns and collaborators, who have each made meaningful progress on their projects over the past several months.
Community Events & Updates
From conference panels to new partnerships, the start of 2026 has brought a number of developments across our extended network that we want to highlight.
AI & Education Panel at Princeton Envision
This weekend at Princeton Envision, Jesse Parent will join the Future of AI in Education panel alongside Tammy Kwan, Amber Berry, and Morgan Mifflin. Jes will also host discussions spanning education at large, AI and knowledge generation, careers, and the flexibility and adaptability of the modern landscape.
For those who track the Envision conference series, this was a meaningful return after the 2017-2019 run. It continues to be one of the more thoughtful convening spaces at the intersection of technology, ethics, and how we view the future.
A New Partnership: Bridgecraft
We’re glad to announce that Bridgecraft has emerged as a new JOPRO partner. Bridgecraft will support several projects connected to the JOPRO Futures Center, as well as mentoring, leadership, and career development efforts more broadly.
MIT Media Lab: AHA Seminar Series
Two recent lectures from MIT’s Advancing Humans with AI group are worth flagging for those in our network.
Michelle Vaccaro explored the conditions under which human-AI collaboration actually outperforms either humans or AI working alone, drawing on her research into synergy, organizational behavior, and the design of meaningful AI safety evaluations.
The session on HumaneBench, led by Erika Anderson and Yaoli Mao, introduced a new paradigm for humane AI accountability that moves beyond static model cards and disclosure toward continuous, outcome-based evaluation of how AI systems shape human behavior and wellbeing in practice.
Both sessions speak directly to questions our community has been engaging with around responsible AI design and its implications for human capability.
David Krakauer at Brain Inspired Complexity Discussion Group
Recently, Paul Middlebrooks’ Brain Inspired Complexity Group convened to discuss Mario Bunge’s 1962 paper “The Complexity of Simplicity,” with an introduction by Thanos Alexandris and special guest: David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute, author of The Complex World, and editor of the Foundational Papers in Complexity Science series.
Also of note, Luis Pessoa led an intriguing discussion on his recent paper, exploring advances in networks and complexity science. We plan to discuss this paper in collaboration with Bradly Alicea during a future session of Orthogonal Research and Education Lab’s SMN meetings.
New Kinds of Science Organizations
In line with the JOPRO and Orthogonal Lab theme of “Doing Science Differently”, we note fellow ekkolapto contributor and colleague Daniel Van Zant’s work with the Wolfram Institute. He has published a new report: “How Democratic Coarse-Graining Filters Against Some of the Research That Matters Most,” the first in a six-part series on “New Kinds of Science Organizations.”
For those following questions about how institutional structures shape which research gets supported and which gets overlooked, the series is well worth tracking. Additionally, we continue to follow and support ekkolápto and their ongoing programming; a number of exciting events are on the horizon.
Plot Twisters: Metagov Fellowship Completion
Congratulations to our sister group Plot Twisters on the successful completion of the Governable Spacemakers Fellowship through Metagov. Their project, Small Hassles Court, is an experiment in community governance and digital space design, and an early-stage mini-game within the forthcoming EdTech gameworld, Twisterland. Cat Chang continues to drive momentum on other Plot Twisters initiatives, with articles in development exploring reflection, agency, and intentionality in game design.
Upcoming Events and Opportunities
Looking ahead, here are a few events and programs that may be relevant for people in our network.
Embodied Intelligence 2026
The International Conference on Embodied Intelligence is back for 2026. Registration is open for Masterclasses as well as presentations. JOPRO’s Cognition Futures working group looks to present once again this year, this time on the nature of embodiment, agency, and selection from alternatives.
NYCWiC 2026
JOPRO will be hosting a discussion at ACM’s New York Celebration of Women in Computing on AI, jobs, and early career options in an era of rapid change — in addition to co-hosting a mini-hackathon at the event. If you’re an early-career researcher or practitioner navigating these questions, this session is designed with you in mind. Registration for the conference is still open, but very limited spaces remain.
MonasteryX Residency
Our friends at Meditation Artifacts are hosting the MonasteryX Residency in Thailand, with a few spots still available for digital nomads, founders-in-development, or those who’d want a structured yet holistic experience to focus on research or developing your craft.
Iris van Rooij: Critical AI Literacies Summer School
Professor Iris van Rooij is running a five-day summer school through Radboud University titled Critical AI Literacies for Resisting and Reclaiming. A strong opportunity for those based in Europe or willing to travel, particularly for researchers, practitioners, and public sector professionals who want to develop more critical frameworks for engaging with AI.
Accelerators and Hackathons
Two items of note for those in our community with entrepreneurial or applied data interests: UC Launch at UC Berkley (open to all UC students, faculty, and alumni), and DataHacks 2026, which will be hosted at UC San Diego. Both programs are looking for project mentors (with virtual options available!) — if you’re interested in serving as one, reach out to the organizers directly.
Website Updates and Project Calls Ahead
Our JOPRO website is scheduled for a broad update in style and function in the months ahead. As that change takes place, we will be posting updated opportunities in these newsletters and on social media as the Futures Center and other projects formalize.
If you want to stay close to what’s developing, subscribing here and following us on LinkedIn are the best ways to do that.
As always, thank you for being part of this ecosystem.
-The JOPRO Team
JOPRO coordinates and cultivates researchers, builders, and practitioners working to modernize how knowledge is generated and applied across domains.
Our work combines project incubation and operator formation with working groups, workshops, and seminar series— supporting both field-level transitions and focused research efforts, in collaboration with academic, civic, and industry partners.