News: Faculty

Chemist Prof. Gregory Voth was interviewed about the first usable computational model of the entire virus that is responsible for COVID-19 on Fox 32 Chicago.

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

Prof. Benson Farb is among mathematicians resurrecting Hilbert’s 13th Problem. Long considered solved, David Hilbert’s question about seventh-degree polynomials is leading researchers to a new web of mathematical connections.

On January 14, Dark Energy Survey released a catalog of nearly 700 million astronomical objects to the public. The pioneering Fermilab-led survey, directed by Astronomy & Astrophysics Prof. Emeritus Rich Kron, covered 5,000 square degrees of the southern sky

Prof. Gladders's undergrads discover bright lensed galaxy in the early universe

The PSD community mourns the passing of the preeminent statistician Leo Goodman, who spent 36 years in the PSD and greatly innovated social sciences research. He died at 92.

After decades of effort, scientists are finally seeing black holes—or are they? Gravitational theorist Prof. Robert Wald weighs in on the sudden observability of black holes.

Researchers in chemist Greg Voth’s lab have created the first computational model of the entire virus responsible for COVID-19. The pioneering multiscale model allows researchers to plug in and better understand information as new discoveries are made.

The World War II-era Chicago school of meteorology that decoded weather forecasting

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.

PSD's Assistant Professors Sunyoung Park and Sarah Sebo were among faculty and staff asked what they've read that they’d recommend to the campus community: Their list includes subjects ranging from the multigenerational family struggles of Korean immigrants living in Japan, to a treatise on mushrooms and capitalism, to a meditation on what therapy can bring to our lives.

New study helps pinpoint when Earth’s tectonic plates began—rocks tell story of planet’s transition from alien landscape to continents, oceans and life

Four current Physical Science Division scientists ranked among the most cited University of Chicago scholars, according to Google Scholar. Researchers included on the list have public Google Scholar profiles with verified email addresses at UChicago.

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.

Geophysical Sciences Professor Elisabeth Moyer discusses her work on the Research Computing Center's U.S. Energy History Visualization in the Atlantic. It is an interactive Sankey diagram of energy transitions.