News

Angela V. Olinto, dean of the Physical Sciences Division, has been named provost of Columbia University, effective March 1. Executive Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Ka Yee C. Lee will serve as interim dean, effective Feb. 5.

An interview with the new Director of the Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics

Guillaume Bal, Professor of Statistics and Mathematics, was named the Director of the Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics (CCAM), starting July 1, 2023. In this Q&A, he discusses his priorities for the committee, areas of potential growth, and his vision for collaboration.

Prof. John Carlstrom cited for microwave interferometry and observations of cosmic microwave background.

Discovery by UChicago astrophysicists, including Alex Ji, may change our picture of how stars explode and elements are made.

A Business Journals article lists UChicago undergrads Aarthi Koripelly and Jackson Lee among the Inno Under 25 for their startup Quail.ai, which tied for first place in last year's College New Venture Challenge and participated in the data science accelerator Transform.

Assistant Professor Bill Fefferman and his group are headed to Taipei to present four works on today’s major quantum topics at QIP’24: the largest and most prestigious quantum computing research conference in the world.

Carlstrom, the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Physics, is celebrated for work investigating the cosmic microwave background for clues about the early universe.

A Phys.org article details a paper by Astro postdoctoral fellow Michael Zhang titled "GJ 367b is a dark, hot, airless sub-Earth."

Prof. Margaret Gardel discusses her research and the arc of her career in this Physics World interview. "I wish I could tell myself 20 years ago that it’s okay to feel like an impostor."

A New York Times article highlights GS Prof. David Keith's Climate Systems Engineering Initiative, mentioning a recent two-day workshop on glacial geoengineering hosted by the initiative, and quotes Professor Emeritus Doug MacAyeal on how predictions have changed since the 1970s.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Anna Wuttig has received an NSF CAREER Award, which supports junior faculty in the sciences through the Faculty Early Career Development Program. The highly regarded honor is bestowed annually upon researchers who have demonstrated exceptional promise in their respective fields. For Wuttig, it carries with it a five-year grant to support the project within the Chemical Catalysis Program of the Chemistry Division.

Long-time PSD Council member and chair Mihir Worah, PhD’95, and spouse Anupama Worah are the first donors to meet the Wallman fundraising challenge, endowing the Worah Family Chair in the Physical Sciences Division.

The University of Chicago will present an honorary degree to distinguished scholar Bernd Sturmfels at its Convocation ceremony in June 2024, in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of mathematics.

Charles Mark Lewis, PhD'23 (Physics), is recognized for "the development of techniques expanding the low-energy reach of new particle detector technologies, with applications in neutrino physics, dark matter searches, and the study of charged-lepton flavor violating modes of muon decay."

Asst. Prof. Anna Wuttig and her team found a way to use electricity to boost a type of chemical reaction often used in synthesizing new candidates for pharmaceutical drugs, which may lay the foundation for greener chemistry.