Nuclei and chiral dynamics

Nuclear theory has entered an exciting era. This is due to advances on many fronts, including the development of effective field theory and the renormalization group for nuclear forces, advances in ab-initio methods for nuclear structure, an effort to develop a universal density functional based on microscopic interactions, and the application of large-scale computing resources. I discuss their impact, recent highlights and the frontiers in understanding and predicting nuclei and the structure of strongly-interacting matter based on chiral interactions.