News: Awards

As part of its new Pioneers Program, NASA has chosen four small-scale astrophysics missions for further concept development, including PUEO, a balloon mission led by Assoc. Prof. Abigail Vieregg, that will launch from Antarctica and detect signals from ultra-high energy neutrinos.

There were 39 news articles featuring Physical Sciences Division research and accomplishments in December and January. Scientists created the first computational model of the entire virus responsible for COVID-19, pioneered measurements of electricity in cells, and charted the evolution of U.S. energy consumption. Several valued members of PSD were memorialized, including a Nobel lareaute and a graduate student. See highlights below and read the full list.

NanoPattern Technologies, co-founded by Prof. Dmitri Talapin, and ReAx Biotechnologies, founded by Asst. Prof Raymond Moellering, receive $150,000 each to commercialize research.

Three PSD faculty members receive named, distinguished service professorships. Rina Foygel Barber has been named the Louis Block Professor in the Department of Statistics and the College. Dmitri Talapin has been named the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Chemistry, the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the College. Laura Gagliardi has been named the first Richard and Kathy Leventhal Professor of Molecular Engineering and Chemistry.

Four postdocs, Michel Fruchart, Hairong Lyu, Jun Nishida, and Anees Palapuravan, have been named recipients of the 2020-2021 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.

In this unprecedented year of news, fifteen PSD-related stories on the UChicago News site garnered over 4,000 views according to Google analytics. The vital role of the PSD response to the pandemic is represented alongside coverage of the University’s appointment of its first woman provost and breakthroughs in field-defining research. Here, ranked by highest readership, are the top stories covering PSD news and research for 2020.

The Physical Sciences Division of the University of Chicago has selected 20 PhD students in the Departments of Mathematics, Physics, Statistics, and Astronomy & Astrophysics as the 2020–21 Radix Trading Fellows.

Astronomer Andrea Ghez on the responsibility that comes with a Nobel Prize. Honored for black hole discovery, Laboratory Schools alum becomes ‘spokesperson for science’

Nine current and former University of Chicago Physical Science Division scientists were named in Web of Science's 2020 report of highly cited researchers. Researchers on the list have demonstrated significant and broad influence in the past decade, with highly cited papers ranking in the top 1% by citation for a chosen field or fields.

Five UChicago scientists named 2020 AAAS fellows, with pioneering PSD scientists Laura Gagliardi, John Carlstrom, and Yamuna Krishnan attaining recognition

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to turn an IBM computer into a quantum material, unlock why supersymmetry can solve problems in the Standard Model, and tune materials to launch a new computing paradigm inspired by the energy-efficiency of the brain.

On Tuesday, November 10, 79 members of the University of Chicago Physical Sciences Division attended the first inaugural PSD Staff Awards. Alex Filatov, Carla Strickland, Sarah Lippert, Anne Collard, and Melinda Moore were recognized.

A new grasp on empathy: Computer Science HandMorph Project uses tech to simulate children’s experience.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to discover how a small molecule is the key to HIV forming capsules, adapt laboratory research during COVID-19, and design nanotechnology that provides hope for a personalized vaccination for treating cancer.

Three PhD students from the Department of Computer Science, Yi Ding, Jean Salac, and Junwen Yang, have been selected for the 2020 edition of the Rising Stars workshop, a prestigious program for boosting the careers of women in CS and related fields.