News

UChicago geochemists Nicolas Dauphas, Andrew Davis, and Reika Yokochi are part of a team assembled to help Japanese researchers analyze samples from asteroid Ryugu collected by Hayabusa2. The pristine rock is similar to a class of meteorites known as “Ivuna-type carbonaceous chondrites” and are thought to date back to the very beginnings of the solar system.

Physics graduate student Katrina Miller traces histories of Black women physicists and astrophysicists in the PSD, in a personal essay for Wired Magazine. She writes, “I just wanted to be a scientist, not a trailblazer. But in my field, people like me are anomalies—and we face constant scrutiny for our race and gender.”

UChicago scientists invented an entirely new way to make a solar cell: by etching holes in the top layer to make it porous. The innovation could form the basis for a less-invasive pacemaker, or similar medical devices.

Prof. Guangbin Dong has been named a 2022 Blavatnik National Awards Finalist in Chemistry. From the group of 31 finalists, three winners—in life sciences, chemistry, and physical sciences & engineering—will be named on June 29. The honorees were chosen from a highly competitive pool of 309 nominees from 150 leading universities and scientific institutions from 38 states across the United States.

The Physical Sciences Division has selected nine graduate students to receive a William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year.  

UChicago Chancellor Robert Zimmer was awarded Harvard University’s 2022 Centennial Medal for his superlative leadership of one of the world’s finest universities, and for his principled advocacy for the core mission and values of higher education on the national and global stage.

Watch the recording of Prof. Wendy Freedman's 2022 Convocation address to the graduates at the all campus celebration that took place June 4, 2022.

Read this interview of Chair of the Department of Physics Young-Kee Kim by David Zierler, the oral historian for the American Institute of Physics, on January 5, 2021.

Helmut Krebs, a machinist for fifty years at the University of Chicago Physical Sciences Division Central Machine Shop and Student Machine Shop, died in Chicago on April 17. He was 87.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to capture the first image of the Milky Way's massive black hole, map the digital divide affecting connectivity across the country, and use computer simulations to understand the world's deadliest viruses.

Students in the College, Zihni Baykara and Macallan Maedke, and graduate students, Kaeli Hughes and Rostom Mbarek have been honored by the Enrico Fermi Institute with Nathan Sugarman Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate and Graduate Research. 

The American Astronomical Society has announced that it will present its 2022 George Van Biesbroeck Prize to Donald G. York, the Horace B. Horton Professor Emeritus, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, and the College. The award is presented biannually and honors a living individual for long-term extraordinary or unselfish service to astronomy.

A graduate student in the Department of Chemistry, Ian Bongalonta, has been named a winner of the 2022 Wayne C. Booth Prize for Excellence in Teaching, awarded annually to graduate students for outstanding instruction of undergraduates. Additionally, three graduate students have been awarded the Physical Sciences Teaching Prize for 2021-22: Sandrine Legault, Colin Lynch, and Sarah Litwin of the Department of Chemistry.

Chemistry Prof. Giulia Galli and scientists at Argonne National Laboratory and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago performed quantum simulations of spin defects — impurities in materials that could offer a promising basis for new quantum technologies — and improved the accuracy of calculations on quantum computers.

Ian Bongalonta, an instructor for Honors General Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry, has been awarded the Wayne C. Booth Prize. Trevor Hyde, a Dickson Instructor in the Department of Mathematics who recently taught Algebraic Number Theory, has been awarded a Glenn and Claire Swogger Award.