News: Awards

Graduate students Becca Thompson and Ross Edel won two of the five named national awards at the 66th Annual American Vacuum Society (AVS) Meeting for their doctoral research. Becca won the Nellie Yeoh Whetten Award, while Ross won the Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Scholarship, both for their “outstanding achievement in vacuum science and technology.”

Matthew Zajac, graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at UChicago, was runner-up in Nature's Young Scientist Essay Competition. Reproduction, rethought, his essay about the desire for science to develop same-sex reproduction technology, has been published online. 

Prof. Amie Wilkinson has won the 2020 Levi L. Conant Prize for the "best expository paper published in either the Notices of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) or the Bulletin of the AMS in the preceding five years."

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has named Profs. Shan Lu and Heather Zheng as Distinguished Members. This designation recognizes members for educational, engineering, and scientific contributions to computing.

Three UChicago CS PhD students and two students from the MS in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (CAPP) program were named to the 2020 class of Siebel Scholars, the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation announced. They are 5 of this year’s cohort of 93 Siebel Scholars, who are chosen from a select group of graduate schools for business, computer science, energy science and bioengineering.

Assoc. Prof. Henry Hoffman of the Department of Computer Science and Assoc. Prof. Abigail Vieregg of the Department of Physics have been awarded the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to scholars who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology. 

The awarded grant will help Nord, utilize AI to design an experiment optimized to measure the expansion rate of the universe. Nord will also be working with Asst. Prof. Yuxin Chen. 

Prof. Wendy Freedman discusses the possibility of systematic errors in Hubble constant calculations with Science News.

Prof. Bryan Dickinson is listed as one of Halo Cures Inc. 40 under 40 Chicago scientists, awarded to scientists for their tireless pursuit of cures and treatments that help people live better lives. Dickinson's work specializes in the creation of functional molecules to solve difficult problems in biology and medicine.  

Geophysical Sciences Prof. MacAyeal was named a 2019 Seligman awardee by the International Glaciology Society. His work in the field of Glaciology is lauded as "groundbreaking and inspirational science."  

In its list of Tech50, Crain's Chicago features Prof. David Awshchalom for research in the field of quantum computing, Prof. Mike Franklin for his work in cloud computing and data handling, and Prof. Rick Stevens for his supercomputer expertise. 

Assoc. Prof. of Computer Science Henry Hoffman and Assoc. Prof. of Physics Abigail Vieregg are among the winners of the 2019 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. 

László Babai has been named the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Computer Science, Mathematics, and the College. His work is centered on theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics. Nick Feamster, who joins UChicago this summer, has been named the Neubauer Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the College. His work focuses on experimental networked systems and security. 

Gregory Rassolov, who is pursuing a PhD in Chemistry, is among four graduate students recognized for exceptional teaching of undergraduates. He was nominated for the Booth Prize by faculty and students for his ability to demystify the subject material and make it less intimidating. 

This week, Prof. Malliaris of Mathematics was awarded the Quantrell award and Profs. Hu of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Lalley of Statistics were both awarded Faculty Awards for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring.