News: Faculty

UChicago scientists see opportunities for ‘metamaterials’ designed using dualities.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Jan. 30 that University of Chicago Prof. Emeritus Eugene Parker has been awarded the 2020 Crafoord Prize in Astronomy.
Awarded every three years, the prestigious Crafoord Prize consists of a gold medal and a sum of six million Swedish krona (about $600,000)—one of the largest prizes in science. 
The Academy, which is also responsible for selecting Nobel Prize winners, cited Parker for his “pioneering and fundamental studies of the solar wind and magnetic fields from stellar to galactic scales.”

Edwin Kite, assistant professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences, and collaborators have proposed a novel explanation for the radius cliff, and it has to do with the solubility of hydrogen gas in the hot, molten rock that makes up the surface of a young planetary core.

A professor in the Department of Geophysical Sciences for nearly 40 years, Alfred T. Anderson, Jr., died on Jan. 15. He made pioneering contributions to the field of volcanology—particularly how to reconstruct long-ago volcanic explosions using clues in the rocks left behind. He was 82. For years, he and his wife, Caroline, served as the resident masters for the Snell-Hitchcock residence hall. 
 

The UChicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the 'Doomsday Clock' to 100 seconds to midnight, closer to global catastrophe than ever before. Prof. Dan Holz, a member of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board, joined Chicago Tonight to discuss the announcement. 

Ka Yee C. Lee, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and currently Vice Provost for Research, has been named the next provost of the University of Chicago, effective Feb. 1. President Robert J. Zimmer announced Lee’s appointment in a message to the campus community in which he praised her work with deans, faculty and researchers across the University. 

Four UChicago scientists, including synthetic chemist, Bryan Dickinson, astrophysicist, Daniel Holz, and computer scientist, Marshini Chetty consider the possibilities—and pitfalls—their own fields could face in the decade ahead. 

This month, PSD researchers have been featured for finding 'dark patterns' that influence shoppers' decision-making, discovering materials that 'remember' past stresses as they age, and for offering an innovative explanation for why there aren't as many Neptune-sized exoplanets.

Prof. Daniel Holz, regular science contributor at WTTW, discusses the top science stories of 2019, including the first ever black hole image, gene-edited cells used to treat sickle cell, the Artemis moon mission, and climate change. 

Stuart A. Kurtz has been named the George and Elizabeth Yovovich Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the College. Kurtz is a theoretical computer scientist who studies computational logic, type theory, complexity theory and randomness. He also has made research contributions in biological computing, bioinformatics and constructive logic. 

Matthew Stephens has been named the Ralph W. Gerard Professor in the Departments of Statistics and Human Genetics and the College. Stephens’ research focuses on a wide variety of problems at the interface of statistics and genetics. His lab often tackles problems where novel statistical methods are required, or can learn something new compared with existing approaches. 

Asst. Prof. Raymond Moellering earned a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award for his project "Reactivity-Driven Metabolic Signaling: A Feature not a Flaw in Metabolic Regulation." Moellering's research aims to develop cellular probes, proteomic methods, and cellular models to illuminate the role of methylglyoxal, a reactive metabolite that is hypothesized to link cellular metabolism with cell stress response, inflammation and many diseases like diabetes, cancer and aging. With this award, Moellering hopes to identify proteins that serve as metabolic sensors, which transmit signals resulting in physical changes in cells and organisms.

Ten current and former University of Chicago Physical Science Division scientists were named in Web of Science's 2019 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.

The Federal Communications Commission Chairman announced the appointment of UChicago's Monisha Ghosh to serve as the agency's Chief Technology Officer. Ghosh is a research professor in PME and an associate member of computer science. She has also been serving as a rotating program director at the National Science Foundation since September 2017, in the Computer and Network System Division within the Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering. Ghosh will be the FCC's first female CTO.

In a paper published Dec. 17 in Astrophysical Journal Letters, Asst. Prof. Edwin Kite and colleagues at Washington University, Stanford University, and Penn State University offer an innovative explanation for why there are proportionally fewer Neptune-sized exoplanets: The oceans of magma on the surface of these planets readily absorb their atmospheres once planets reach about three times the size of Earth. 

 
Giulia Galli, Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering and professor of chemistry, uses computational models to figure out the behavior of molecules and materials. The focus of Galli’s studies is to understand and predict how to harness molecular behavior to improve technology, particularly in the areas of purifying water, speeding up computation and sensing with quantum technology, and perfecting renewable energy technology.