News: Faculty

Astronomers at the University of Chicago, MIT and elsewhere have used a massive cluster of galaxies as an X-ray magnifying glass to peer back in time, to nearly 9.4 billion years ago. In the process, they spotted a tiny dwarf galaxy in its very first, high-energy stages of star formation

UChicago faculty designed an alternate reality game, Terrarium, to help students develop innovative proposals about climate change and practice the kind of rigorous inquiry at the heart of UChicago's core values.  

University of Chicago Prof. Chuan He partnered with Northwestern Assoc. Prof. Wei Zhang to develop a simple blood test that accurately detects whether patients with diabetes have developed vascular complications, which are responsible for about two-thirds of diabetes deaths. 

Jacob Bean, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, led a project to build and install an innovative instrument that will scan the skies for new exoplanets—worlds in other solar systems that could potentially host life. Over the past eight years, Bean and his team had designed and built the instrument, called MAROON-X; this summer they finally attached it to a telescope at the Gemini Observatory at the top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. 

AI technology is increasingly used to open up new horizons for scientists and researchers. At the University of Chicago, researchers are using it for everything from scanning the skies for supernovae to finding new drugs from millions of potential combinations and developing a deeper understanding of the complex phenomena underlying the Earth’s climate. 

 

A new study by a group of scientists including a University of Chicago professor argues that the ice age was caused by global cooling, triggered by extra dust in the atmosphere from a giant asteroid collision in outer space. 

Forbes features Prof. Fred Chong's Quora response to the question: how will quantum computing change our society? He discusses possible technological advancements using quantum computing, including providing new means for encrypting and securely communicating data. 

Fifteen faculty members across five departments joined the Physical Sciences Division this fall. Read more about their research interests and backgrounds.

The Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics is partnering with the University of Chicago Library to run a pilot study to determine how to scan 175,000 photographic glass plate slides from Yerkes Observatory in a way that will facilitate meaningful scientific inquiry.  

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. 

Asst. Prof. Pedro Lopes reimagines the role of “human” in human-computer interaction. Some of Lopes's projects consider how humans respond to computers being in control of their anatomy.  

Assoc. Prof. Bozhi Tian develops a less invasive pacemaker--silicon cells that could be injected into the heart and operated using pulses of light. 

Prof. David Jablonksi addresses a long-standing biodiversity question: why are there so many species at the equator and so few near the poles? In one study, Jablonski, whose research on mollusks has shaped the field, worked with a UChicago bird biologist to understand how species across the world live in different climates. In the second, Jablonski and postdoc Katie Collins used a micro CT scanner to analyze how forms of mollusks change from tropics to poles. 

Postdoctoral Fellow Stephanie Olson comments on new geological discovery of 'massive pool' of methane and posits that it could have astrobiological significance.