News

Seven Physical Sciences Division students have been awarded 2022 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. Each fellowship provides three years of support during a five-year fellowship period. For each of the three years of support, NSF provides a $34,000 stipend and $12,000 cost of education allowance to the University.

Jeff McMahon, Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, and Kevin Huffenberger, Associate Professor of Physics at Florida State University have been named co-spokespeople for CMB-S4, a next-generation experiment investigating the remnant light from the Big Bang.

Professor of Physics Edward Blucher catches up with The Chicago Maroon about his 2021 AAAS funded work on asymmetry and an experiment deep underground in a mine in northern Ontario that is looking at a rare type of nuclear decay.

A UChicago College science communication course co-taught by Prof. Peggy Mason and Sara Serritella covers written, visual and hands-on methods of sharing data with the general public.

For World Quantum Day, Prof. David Awschalom comments in Forbes’ brief overview of where quantum computing, communications, and sensing and its industry and investments are going, where quantum is today, and how we got here.

KICP fellow, Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil, was interviewed by Astrobites about her childhood fascination with Albert Einstein and the wisdom gained staking a career as an astrophysicist, emphasizing "you don’t need to choose your career over your identity."

Jasmine Lu, Ziwei Liu, Jas Brooks, and Prof. Asst. Pedro Lopes of the Human Computer Integration Lab are developing a new kind of haptic feedback they've dubbed chemical haptics, applying it to five different virtual reality experiences.

The 2022 Darwin-Wallace Medal from The Linnean Society of London has been awarded to University of Chicago paleobiologist David Jablonski in honor of his making major advances in evolutionary science.

Prof. Lek-Heng Lim is among the 180 Guggenheim fellows selected in this year’s class from nearly 2,500 applicants. He is recognized for introducing high-level algebra, geometry and topology to applied mathematics. In particular, he works with a type of mathematical object called a tensor and how the concept can be used in computational mathematics and the information sciences.

On March 31, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) announced that Lek-Heng Lim, Professor of the Department of Statistics, Computational and Applied Mathematics Initiative, and the College, is among 26 members to be honored in the 2022 Class of SIAM Fellows.

A top flight of architects and structural engineers will present public lectures on some of the most innovative work being done in contemporary structural design as part of a unique physics undergraduate course offered this Spring Quarter at the University of Chicago, Physics & Contemporary Architecture (PHSC11800) taught by Professors Sid Nagel and Heinrich Jaeger. Enrolled undergraduate students, as well as the interested public, can join online for free Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. CST.

Lia Merminga, an internationally renowned physicist and scientific leader, has been appointed to lead Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, effective April 18. She is the seventh director and first woman director.

Two astrophysicists who have been selected for the prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship Program have chosen to join the University of Chicago Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics to conduct their postdoctoral research. Jessica Avva, AB'15, and Hayley Macpherson will seek to answer how the universe works as Einstein Fellows, beginning their programs in Autumn Quarter of 2022.

The Heising-Simons Foundation today announced Michael Zhang, California Institute of Technology, Astronomy Ph.D.’22, as a recipient of the 51 Pegasi b Fellowship. He is among eight fellows selected for 2022. Zhang will be joining the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics in the Fall term to study the atmospheres of planets outside the solar system.

The Physical Sciences Division has many programs ranked highly in the 2022 U.S. News & World Report top science graduate schools rankings.