News

The Adler Planetarium interviewed graduate student, Andrea Bryant, as part of its Chicago's Black Women in STEAM blog series. Bryant spoke about what sparked her interest in astrophysics, her graduate experiences, her passion for music, and more. 

Scientists with the University of Chicago and Field Museum have discovered stardust that formed 5 to 7 billion years ago—the oldest solid material ever found on Earth. The grains of stardust were trapped inside meteorites long ago—even before the sun formed—where they remained unchanged for billions of years, until one such meteorite fell 50 years ago in Australia. These “time capsules” offer clues about what was going on in our patch of the universe before the sun formed; for example, the grains suggest a surprising boom in star formation. 
 

For his work developing new methods for the large-scale optimization challenges that underlie many modern computing applications, UChicago CS assistant professor Lorenzo Orecchia received the NSF CAREER award. The CAREER program is one of the most prestigious NSF awards, supporting early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

PSD’s February spotlight is Stu Kurtz, George and Elizabeth Yovovich Professor in the Department of Computer Science. Stu has been with UChicago for 38 years and is inspired by the opportunity to positively impact his discipline and the lives of people around him.

Claire Baum is from Mount Prospect, Illinois. She holds a BS in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She’s currently in her third year of pursuing a PhD in physics at the University of Chicago.
 

Scientists from the University of Chicago and other institutions around the world have discovered multiple new interesting worlds beyond Earth—including its first potentially habitable Earth-size world and another that is a ‘Star Wars’-type system with two suns.  
 

Rebecca Maxcy discusses finEDge, a financial literacy curriculum for high school students, on WTTW's Chicago Tonight. The curriculum was created by The Magnetar Capital UChicago Financial Education Initiative, a collaboration between UChicago STEM Education program and Magnetar Capital. Maxcy is the principal investigator and director of The Magnetar Capital UChicago Financial Education Initiative. 

Ka Yee C. Lee, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and currently Vice Provost for Research, has been named the next provost of the University of Chicago, effective Feb. 1. President Robert J. Zimmer announced Lee’s appointment in a message to the campus community in which he praised her work with deans, faculty and researchers across the University. 

Kartik Singhal was born and raised in Ghaziabad, India. He holds a bachelor of technology in computer science and engineering from the National Institute of Technology Calicut and a master of science in computer science from Brown University. He also worked as a software engineer at Oracle India. He is now pursuing a doctorate in computer science at the University of Chicago.

Four UChicago scientists, including synthetic chemist, Bryan Dickinson, astrophysicist, Daniel Holz, and computer scientist, Marshini Chetty consider the possibilities—and pitfalls—their own fields could face in the decade ahead. 

This month, PSD researchers have been featured for finding 'dark patterns' that influence shoppers' decision-making, discovering materials that 'remember' past stresses as they age, and for offering an innovative explanation for why there aren't as many Neptune-sized exoplanets.

Prof. Daniel Holz, regular science contributor at WTTW, discusses the top science stories of 2019, including the first ever black hole image, gene-edited cells used to treat sickle cell, the Artemis moon mission, and climate change. 

WBEZ features finEDge, a program developed by UChicago STEM Education and Magnetar Capital Foundation to teach students about personal finance. The curriculum focuses heavily on student loans and the costs of higher education so students are prepared to make informed financial decisions about college. 

A new study by University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania scientists shows that as materials age, they ‘remember’ prior stresses and external forces, which researchers can then use to create new materials with unique properties.    

Stuart A. Kurtz has been named the George and Elizabeth Yovovich Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the College. Kurtz is a theoretical computer scientist who studies computational logic, type theory, complexity theory and randomness. He also has made research contributions in biological computing, bioinformatics and constructive logic. 

Matthew Stephens has been named the Ralph W. Gerard Professor in the Departments of Statistics and Human Genetics and the College. Stephens’ research focuses on a wide variety of problems at the interface of statistics and genetics. His lab often tackles problems where novel statistical methods are required, or can learn something new compared with existing approaches.