September 1, 2026
Please welcome the faculty joining the Physical Sciences Division in the 2026–27 academic year.
Benjamin Bakker, Mathematics
Ben Bakker is a professor in the Department of Mathematics. His research focuses on Hodge theory in algebraic geometry, which connects the topology of algebraic varieties to differential structures on them. His work has important applications to arithmetic geometry, moduli theory, and birational geometry. Recently, Bakker has used ideas from mathematical logic to resolve several long-standing conjectures dating back to the 1960s when the foundations of modern Hodge theory were laid. He received his AB from Harvard University and his PhD from Princeton University; before joining the University of Chicago, he held faculty positions at the University of Georgia and the University of Illinois Chicago. His honors include an NSF CAREER Award and an ICBS Frontiers of Science Award. This year he was an invited speaker at the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians.
Jacob Covey, Physics and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Jacob P. Covey is an associate professor in the Department of Physics, the James Frank Institute, and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. He specializes in atomic, molecular, and optical physics. As a quantum experimentalist, he focuses on arrays of neutral atoms in optical tweezers. Neutral atom arrays are one of the most scalable and promising technologies for quantum computers. In addition to his work in quantum, Covey is working in a wide range of areas, from fundamental physics to metrology to device engineering. Covey is the recipient of the 2025 Sloan Foundation Fellowship, 2024 NSF CAREER Award, the 2024 DOE Early Career Award, the Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
Daniel Cziczo, Geophysical Sciences
Dan Cziczo is a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences. He is an atmospheric scientist interested in the interrelationship of particulate matter and cloud formation. His research utilizes laboratory and field studies to elucidate how small particles interact with water vapor to form droplets and ice crystals, which are important players in the Earth’s climate system. His group uses small cloud chambers in the laboratory to mimic atmospheric conditions that lead to cloud formation and observing clouds in situ from remote mountaintop sites or through the use of research aircraft. Dan’s current research interests include the chemical composition of atmospheric aerosols, Earth's radiative budget, and meteoritic, spacecraft debris and launch vehicle emissions in the atmosphere.
Mateo Díaz, Statistics and Data Science
Mateo Díaz is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics and the Data Science Institute. His research lies at the intersection of continuous optimization, geometry, and statistics. He develops mathematical foundations and scalable algorithms for problems arising in data science, machine learning, and signal processing. Before joining the University of Chicago, he was an assistant professor of applied mathematics and statistics at Johns Hopkins University. He previously spent two years as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. Mateo received his PhD in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2021 and earned bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and in systems and computing engineering, as well as a master’s degree in mathematics, from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. His work has been recognized with the Beale–Orchard-Hays Prize, an NSF CAREER Award, and a Sloan Research Fellowship in Mathematics.
Daniel Laorenza, Chemistry
Dan Laorenza is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry. His research connects molecular-level design with materials physics to develop new platforms for quantum information science, multimodal sensing, and the electrical control of spin. By coupling structure, dynamics, and function in extended systems, his lab works to establish design principles for adaptive materials that convert subtle environmental inputs into measurable and controllable outputs. Laorenza received his BA/MA in chemistry from Wesleyan University and his PhD in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was an Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University prior to joining UChicago.
Eitan Levin, Statistics and Computational and Applied Mathematics
Eitan Levin is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics and the Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics. His research focuses on the mathematics of data science and machine learning, drawing on ideas from optimization, geometry, algebra, and probability. His recent work develops methodology for working with data that comes in different sizes, such as point clouds containing different numbers of points, graphs on different numbers of nodes, and sequences of tokens of any length. Levin received a PhD in applied and computational mathematics from Caltech and an AB in mathematics from Princeton.
Huy Tuan Pham, Mathematics
Huy Tuan Pham is a professor in the Department of Mathematics. Pham’s main research interest is in probabilistic and extremal combinatorics, and related applications in probability theory, number theory, and theoretical computer science. His recent focus includes the study of fundamental phenomena around random systems, with connections to stochastic processes, large deviations principles, and number theory. Pham has been recognized with a Clay Research Fellowship, a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, a Sloan Research Fellowship, the Dénes König Prize, the ICBS Frontiers of Science Award, and the ASIACOMB Prize. Pham received his PhD from Stanford University in 2023 under the supervision of Jacob Fox, an MASt in mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 2019 and a BS in mathematics and MS in statistics at Stanford University in 2018. Before joining the University of Chicago, Pham was a Clay Research Fellow at Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Study, and a faculty member at California Institute of Technology.
Haozhi Qi, Computer Science (January 2027)
Haozhi Qi is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, starting January 2027. His research asks a fundamental question in robotics: How can we give machines the physical intelligence to interact with the world with human-like dexterity? He works on robot learning, dexterous manipulation, multisensory perception, and learning from human experience. Rather than designing robots for individual tasks, Qi aims to build machines that can learn broadly useful behaviors, adapt them across different bodies and environments, and continually improve through interaction with the physical world. Qi received his PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. His experience also includes work on robotics at Meta and Amazon.
Hao Shen, Statistics
Hao Shen is a professor in the Department of Statistics. He also has a joint courtesy appointment in the Department of Mathematics. His research interests include probability theory, stochastic analysis, partial differential equations, and mathematical physics. Hao has been recognized with several awards, including a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, an Eisenbud Professorship from Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute, a Simons Fellowship in Mathematics, and a Rollo Davidson Prize. Before joining UChicago, he was a faculty member at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jessica Zebrowski, Astronomy and Astrophysics
Jessica Zebrowski is an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. She is an experimental cosmologist whose research focuses on understanding how the universe has evolved over cosmic time. Much of her work explores the relatively uncharted “middle ages” of cosmic history, between the first light we can observe from the early universe and the stars and galaxies that came later. To do this, her group builds and deploys telescopes from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica, including instruments on high-altitude balloons launched to the edge of space. Zebrowski received her PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the faculty, she was a NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Einstein Fellow at the University of Chicago and a joint Fermilab Lederman Fellow and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics Fellow.