News: Events

Redefining the landscape - Women in STEM, an exhibit featuring narratives and large-scale portraits of the women who are shaping STEM in the Physical Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, will open on Thursday, March 5, 2020, at 3:00 PM with a presentation by University of Chicago Provost and Chemistry Professor Ka Yee Lee. The opening reception will be in the atrium of the William Eckhardt Research Center from 4:00-6:00 PM. 

A two-day workshop took place from Oct. 31-Nov.1 at UChicago to raise awareness and generate strategies for the ethical development and implementation of AI and quantum computing. The workshop was organized by the Chicago Quantum Exchange and funded by the Kavli Foundation and the Center for Data and Computing.

The Committee on Evolutionary Biology—an interdivisional and interinstitutional graduate training program—will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a two-day event Nov. 21-22, featuring scholars, students and alumni of the program discussing their groundbreaking research and scientific achievements. 

On October 24, the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Lectures at the University of Chicago—named in honor of the second woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics—will feature the third woman to win, 2018 Nobel laureate Prof. Donna Strickland.

Prof. Alex Eskin, a UChicago mathematician who co-proved a “magic wand theorem” has been awarded one of the $3 million Breakthrough Prizes. 

The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, of which the University of Chicago is a partner, received the prize for creating the first image of a black hole earlier this year.  Michael Levin, an associate professor of physics studying quantum condensed matter physics, was also awarded the New Horizons Prize along with three other physicists. 

The University of Chicago has named its Physics Research Center in honor of former faculty member and founding physics department chair Albert A. Michelson, a pioneering scientist who was the first American to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences. The 1907 prize honored his field-defining work, including taking the first accurate measurement of the speed of light. 

Four distinguished scholars have been named recipients of honorary degrees this year.

This April, labs in the Department of Chemistry and the Institute for Molecular Engineering (IME) joined a competition to be the Safest Lab of 2019. The winning labs earned not only the title but also a grand prize of $500 or two runner-up prizes of $250 to be used for a lab outing. 

‘finEDge’ is a research-based program that teaches students critical financial decision-making skills, helping them navigate a complex, ever-changing marketplace.

This April, labs in the Department of Chemistry and the Institute for Molecular Engineering (IME) are invited to join a competition to be the Safest Lab of 2019. The premise? The Joint Research Safety Initiative (JRSI), a student and postdoc-run group, will train volunteers to walk through participating labs “looking both for safety mishaps and clever ingenuity.” The winning labs earn not only the title but also a grand prize of $500 or two runner-up prizes of $250 to be used for a lab outing. 

The STEM Broader Impacts Fair gathers science-focused organizations like Artifice that are seeking volunteers and scientist support. The fair began as a way to connect graduate students with local outreach opportunities, but for the first time this fall, all undergraduate and graduate students, post-docs, and faculty are invited to connect with the organizations.