News: Awards

Recommendations from UChicago award winners, including CS alum Polly Ren, SB’25, College Undergraduate Student Prize in Undergraduate Teaching winner.

Congratulations to Michael Rust, who has been selected as a 2025 Innovation Fund Investigator.

In 2025, the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago continued its enduring legacy of scientific discovery, translating innovation into bold impact in service of a better world. We’re thrilled to share a few of our proudest achievements.

University of Chicago students Logan Hanssler and Elijah Jenkins, both fourth-years in the College, have been selected as 2026 Marshall Scholars. Each will be provided the opportunity to study in their chosen fields for two years at any university in the United Kingdom. Logan Hanssler (Astrophysics; Molecular Engineering) intends to study Optics and Photonics at Imperial College London and pursue a degree by research in Physics at Durham University.

Sixth annual workshop celebrates and supports early-career data scientists.

The PEERING testbed, created by UChicago Professor Nick Feamster and colleagues, received the Test of Time Award at the 2025 ACM Internet Measurement Conference.

Yu Deng will share the 2026 Leonard Eisenbud Prize for Mathematics and Physics for his fundamental contributions to the theory of dispersive PDE and, in particular, to a new understanding of wave kinetic equations.

Six University of Chicago Physical Sciences Division scientists were named in Web of Science's 2025 report of highly cited researchers. According to Web of Science, researchers on the list have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their fields.
 

Pioneering cosmologist honored for landmark measurements of the Hubble Constant.

Congrats to J. Peter May, who received the 2026 AMS Elias M. Stein Mentoring Award for exceptional mentoring. 

Congratulations to Heinrich Jaeger, who has received the American Physical Society's 2026 Leo P. Kadanoff Prize.

Congratulations to Frank Calegari, who is recognized for his work presenting a striking and original proof resolving a conjecture that had stood since 1968, showing that the coefficients of any noncongruence modular form possess unbounded denominators.

Littlewood has received his award for leading international research institutions, including Argonne National Laboratory and the Cavendish Laboratory, and especially as founding executive chair of the Faraday Institution, the UK’s independent institute for electrochemical energy storage research.

The Materials Research Society (MRS) has named Professor Jiwoong Park of the University of Chicago Department of Chemistry and Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering as the 2025 recipient of the David Turnbull Lectureship. This highly esteemed career award recognizes a scientist for "outstanding contributions to the fundamental understanding and communication of materials science."

Vieregg is recognized for transformative contributions in the detection of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmogenic neutrinos, and providing transformative mentorship to the next generation of leaders in the field.