News: Awards

Guangbin Dong has been named the first Weldon G. Brown Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the College.

This month PSD researchers were featured in the news for climate research findings that the Southern Hemisphere is stormier than the Northern, creating a living smartwatch that runs on slime, and seminal contributions to the development of a quantum internet.

Two postdocs, Yanzeng Li and Alexander Strang, have been named recipients of the 2022-2023 Suzuki Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. Yuji Suzuki, SM’70, a longtime supporter and former Council member of the Physical Sciences Division, established the Yuji and Lorraine Suzuki Postdoctoral Research Fund in 2016 to recognize outstanding postdoctoral researchers. The award provides a salary top-off.

Elizabeth Kelley, a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry, was honored with the 2023 K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award, which recognizes graduate students who show exemplary promise as future leaders of higher education and who are committed to academic innovation in the areas of equity, community engagement, and teaching and learning.

Sidney Nagel, the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, is accepting the 2023 American Physical Society Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research. The award, sometimes referred to as the ‘lifetime achievement Oscar of physics,’ recognizes “contributions of the highest level that advance our knowledge and understanding of the physical universe in all its facets.”

Fred Chong, the Seymour Goodman Professor in the Department of Computer Science, was elevated to IEEE Fellow in the organization’s 2023 class. The distinction was given to Chong for “contributions to the field of quantum computer architecture, compilation and optimization.”

Assoc. Prof. Bryan Dickinson, Dept. of Chemistry, was awarded the ACS Chemical Biology Young Investigator Award. He was cited for his novel means to perturb, probe, or control numerous important biological regulatory programs spanning from the lipid signaling to epitranscriptome and RNA targeting.

This month PSD reserachers were featured in the news for their efforts to create an 'artificial photosynthesis' system, advance nanoparticle research to fight cancer, and describe cloudy atmospheres on explanets with the James Webb Space telescope.

The Highly Cited Researchers™ list from Clarivate™ identifies scientists and social scientists who have demonstrated significant influence through publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Ten PSD members made the 2022 list.

UChicago computer scientists will lead a $9.2M grant from ARPA for the UpDown System, to speed up graph analytics. The effort will reinvent computer architecture, dramatically increasing efficiency and scalability for graph computing. Prof. Andrew Chien wil head a team including Henry Hoffmann, Yanjing Li, and Michael Maire.

Pranav Gokhale, PhD‘20 Computer Science, was among Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40 for 2022. Prof. Fred Chong comments on his success in co-leading their quantum startup, Super.tech. 

Liew Family Professor Giulia Galli recieved the ISSNAF Lifetime Achievement Award which acknowledges outstanding individuals of Italian origin who, thanks to their pioneering spirit and lifetime commitment, have honored their country of origin and given a significant contribution to research, leadership, and mentorship in any field.

Prof. Abigail Vieregg, Depts. of Physics and Astronomy and Astrophysics, has been awarded $1.25M from the Moore Foundation for instrumentation development to advance the detection of the highest energy neutrinos in ice sheets and build a more complete picture of the dynamic high-energy universe.
 

Prof. Marcela Carena, Dept. of Physics, and of Fermi National Laboratory has been selected by The Department of Energy as one of two national laboratory scientists to be named DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellows. 

This month PSD researchers were featured for their efforts to test an unhackable internet, develop metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to transform cancer treatments, and design and build the next generation telescope called CMB-S4.