News

NanoPattern Technologies, co-founded by Prof. Dmitri Talapin, and ReAx Biotechnologies, founded by Asst. Prof Raymond Moellering, receive $150,000 each to commercialize research.

Prof. Benson Farb is among mathematicians resurrecting Hilbert’s 13th Problem. Long considered solved, David Hilbert’s question about seventh-degree polynomials is leading researchers to a new web of mathematical connections.

On January 14, Dark Energy Survey released a catalog of nearly 700 million astronomical objects to the public. The pioneering Fermilab-led survey, directed by Astronomy & Astrophysics Prof. Emeritus Rich Kron, covered 5,000 square degrees of the southern sky

Prof. Gladders's undergrads discover bright lensed galaxy in the early universe

The PSD community mourns the passing of the preeminent statistician Leo Goodman, who spent 36 years in the PSD and greatly innovated social sciences research. He died at 92.

Yiran Fan, FinMath SM ‘15 and Ph.D. student ‘beloved by all who knew him,’ 1990–2021

After decades of effort, scientists are finally seeing black holes—or are they? Gravitational theorist Prof. Robert Wald weighs in on the sudden observability of black holes.

Researchers in chemist Greg Voth’s lab have created the first computational model of the entire virus responsible for COVID-19. The pioneering multiscale model allows researchers to plug in and better understand information as new discoveries are made.

The World War II-era Chicago school of meteorology that decoded weather forecasting

UChicago astrophysicist Jose María Ezquiaga lays out how LIGO gravitational waves could be scrambled, yielding information.

Electricity is a key ingredient in living bodies. We know that voltage differences are important in biological systems; they drive the beating of the heart and allow neurons to communicate with one another. But for decades, it wasn’t possible to measure voltage differences between organelles—the membrane-wrapped structures inside the cell—and the rest of the cell. A pioneering technology created by UChicago scientists, however, allows researchers to peer into cells to see how many different organelles use voltages to carry out functions. 

Amid a tumultuous year in which many pivoted to COVID-19 research, University of Chicago scholars and scientists have also been hard at work continuing to understand the planet and the universe we live in, to improve our lives, and to build a future that’s clean, safe and sustainable.

Three PSD faculty members receive named, distinguished service professorships. Rina Foygel Barber has been named the Louis Block Professor in the Department of Statistics and the College. Dmitri Talapin has been named the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Chemistry, the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the College. Laura Gagliardi has been named the first Richard and Kathy Leventhal Professor of Molecular Engineering and Chemistry.

PSD's Assistant Professors Sunyoung Park and Sarah Sebo were among faculty and staff asked what they've read that they’d recommend to the campus community: Their list includes subjects ranging from the multigenerational family struggles of Korean immigrants living in Japan, to a treatise on mushrooms and capitalism, to a meditation on what therapy can bring to our lives.

Four postdocs, Michel Fruchart, Hairong Lyu, Jun Nishida, and Anees Palapuravan, have been named recipients of the 2020-2021 Suzuki Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. Yuji Suzuki, SM’70, a longtime supporter and former Council member of the Physical Sciences Division, established the Yuji and Lorraine Suzuki Postdoctoral Research Fund in 2016 to recognize outstanding postdoctoral researchers. The award provides a salary top-off.