MEETING INFORMATION:

The 34th annual meeting of New England Sequencing and Timing (NEST) will take place on Saturday, March 28, 2026 at the University of Connecticut.

Please register by March 23 if you plan to attend in person (RSVP here).

The program and abstracts will be available here.

Livestream link will be available here.

Live Q&A chat will be available here.

Location: University of Connecticut, Arjona Building, Room 143

Address: 337 Mansfield Rd, Storrs, CT 06269

Parking: There will be signs from South Parking Garage to the conference site (see here for parking fee). Payment is required at the time of entry and can be made via the Flowbird mobile app or at the kiosk near the elevator on the first floor. See the Program and Abstract Book (linked above) for more parking options (some are free on Saturday).

There will be a registration fee ($40 for faculty and $25 for students and postdocs) which can be paid on site by cash, check or Venmo (breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided).

Gala reception with cocktails, dinner, and jam will occur at Ed Large’s house after the event. In-person interactions and social gatherings are a cherished hallmark of NEST. We hope you will join us!

Call for Abstracts

Abstract submission deadline: February 28, 2026

Submit your abstract here. Acceptance notifications will go out in early March.

NEST is traditionally a local/regional workshop. We accept submissions from outside the New England area this year, however, only in-person presentations will be accepted.

This year’s theme is Interpersonal Coordination. Related topics include but are not limited to:

  • Rhythmic movement coordination
  • Interpersonal communication
  • Musical ensemble performance
  • Interpersonal interaction in development
  • Interpersonal coordination in therapeutic settings
  • Human-robot interaction
  • Neurophysiological synchronization

While the above topics will be highlighted by this year's theme, we welcome all submissions related to rhythm, sequencing and timing in the behavior of living and artificial systems.

Please send questions to:  musicdynamicslab@gmail.com

Information regarding registration, lodging and transportation can be found on this page and will be updated as the event approaches.

Contact Us

All updates about NEST 2026 will be sent via email.

Contact us at musicdynamicslab@gmail.com with any questions.

If you know someone who is interested in joining the NEST family, please let us know so we can add them to our email list.

Join us Virtually!

There will be a livestream of this year's NEST, so you can join us from anywhere in the world.

During the livestream, join our discussion on Discord to post comments and questions for presenters. Posts will be monitored during Q & A, so you can interact with the speakers in real-time.

Livestream will be available here.
Join us here: NEST 2026 Discussion on Discord will be available here.

 

History of NEST

The idea of the NEST meetings was hatched over breakfast in New Orleans at the November 1990 meeting of the Psychonomics Society. Charles Collyer, David Rosenbaum, Jonathan Vaughan, and Daniel Willingham, all of whom were then working in the greater New England area, decided to get together soon at a place closer to home and discuss their research. This they did in January of 1991 in Amherst. The NEST acronym, which invokes the hierarchically nested structure of rhythms and sequences, was coined at this first informal meeting.

The second NEST meeting was already more structured, and gradually the meetings reached their current size of about 40 attendees. The first four meetings were held at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, organized by David Rosenbaum. After his departure for Penn State in the summer of 1994, Charles Collyer hosted the next five meetings at Brown University in Providence. Bruno Repp took over as organizer in 2000, with meetings being held first at Yale University and more recently at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven. In 1998, a book edited by Rosenbaum and Collyer was published which is known informally as “The Best of NEST.” To view its contents, click here.

NEST Abstract Book Archives

Edward Large and the Music Dynamics Lab have hosted NEST since 2017. The abstract books from the years hosted by UConn are listed below:

2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025