December 12, 2025
As we approach an exciting new year, UChicago’s Physical Sciences Division invites you into our laboratories, research sites, and classrooms to see our scientists and mathematicians at work throughout 2025.
The PSD’s legacy of posing the universe’s greatest questions, creating new fields of inquiry, making scientific discoveries, and applying these breakthroughs to the improvement of human life and the world around us has endured for over 130 years.
This year, scientists and mathematicians in the PSD have investigated fundamental mysteries. Our astronomers and astrophysicists probed how fast the universe is truly expanding, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, and the extreme environments in the center of our galaxy.
Our geophysical scientists explored Mars’s lost atmosphere, and our physicists worked toward the development of a muon collider, 10 times as powerful as the Large Hadron Collider, to uncover unknown physics. Our mathematicians illuminated why time cannot flow in reverse.
PSD scientists have built on this fundamental research and applied it to foster sustainability, improve quality of life, and drive innovation. Our climate scientists addressed environmental change, including measuring sea-ice loss using novel tools. Our statisticians developed a new probability calibration metric to improve decision-making, and our physicists and materials scientists developed decentralized, autonomous locomotion with the potential of traversing dangerous terrain.
Our chemists developed a highly accurate blood test for cancer and a noninvasive device to detect airborne signs of disease. Our computer scientists invented technology to help those with blindness or low vision “see” through touch, developed accessible, code-free robot programming to help democratize technology, and explored how robots can aid in childhood literacy.
In recognition of these advancements, our faculty have won a National Medal of Science, a Dirac Medal, a New Horizons in Mathematics Prize, a Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, a Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics, and many more.
The PSD continued the University of Chicago’s long tradition of interdisciplinary collaboration, hosting a first-of-its-kind Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the third annual Origins Federation Conference, in search of how life began.
We established the Leinweber Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Chicago, directed by Dam Thanh Son, University Professor in Physics; and we celebrated the launch of the Berggren Center for Quantum Biology and Medicine, co-directed by Greg Engel, Professor in Chemistry and PME, as well as the grand opening of the new home for the NSF-Simons National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology (NITMB) and the NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI Institute).
Our PSD educators also reinforced their commitment to train the next generation of scientists by excelling at undergraduate and graduate teaching, expanding our master’s programs and research experiences for high school students, and investing in community outreach.
Please enjoy the video below highlighting just a small selection of our community’s incredible achievements and join us in looking forward to a new year of advancements. We wish you a bright and fulfilling 2026.
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