News: Faculty

2026

How Argonne is supercharging scientific discovery

September 28, 2026

Evan Jenkins

Argonne’s Ian Foster explains how AI will be used to accelerate research.


CSEi Faculty Spotlight: Liz Moyer

September 28, 2026

Photo of Liz Moyer.

Liz Moyer, Associate Professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences, discusses her research on the potential impacts of proposed methods to cool the earth by altering certain clouds.


Uncommon Interview: Fields Medalist Yu Deng on the emergence of irreversibility

September 28, 2026

Photo of the University of Chicago.

The UChicago mathematics professor spoke to the Maroon about his work proving one of the decade’s most important results in mathematical physics.


Scientific visualizations light up Chicago at ART on THE MART

September 28, 2026

Visitors to Chicago’s Riverwalk can view “Where Data Becomes Light” Thursdays through Sundays from 7:30-8 p.m. now through November 15.

Running through Nov. 15, the new installation from Argonne and UIC takes viewers from atoms and the human body to hurricanes, black holes and the evolution of the universe, bringing simulation data to life at an extraordinary scale.


CSEi welcomes its second cohort of research fellows

September 28, 2026

Photo of Yu

The 2026–2028 cohort brings together five leading early-career researchers from diverse fields to explore and evaluate climate interventions aimed at reducing the risks of a warming planet.


A University of Chicago computer scientist pushes past a long-standing math barrier

September 28, 2026

Photo of Haotian Jiang.

For more than 40 years, mathematicians and computer scientists have wrestled with a deceptively simple question: If many overlapping requirements all need to be balanced at once, how evenly can it be done?


MS in Applied Data Science capstone research published in cancers

September 28, 2026

Utku Pamuksuz, faculty advisor for the MS-ADS capstone project.

For many graduate students, a capstone project marks the culmination of months of learning. For one team of students in the University of Chicago’s MS in Applied Data Science (MS-ADS) program, it became something even more: peer-reviewed published research in Cancers.


Sidney Nagel wins Golden Goose Award

September 28, 2026

Sidney Nagel

This year’s Golded Goose Award honorees turned coffee stains, holiday lights, and a noisy ultrasound experiment into breakthroughs in physics, disaster response, and cancer treatment.


Webb Telescope discovers new molecule, uncovers hidden photochemistry

September 22, 2026

Artist concept of TOI-6894 b

Finding reveals how starlight drives surprising chemistry, offers new way to study alien atmospheres.
 


University of Chicago researchers share new map of universe thanks to South Pole Telescope

September 21, 2026

Photo of the South Pole telescope.

An effort led by University of Chicago researchers has provided the sharpest and clearest ever map of mass in the universe.


In 2024, University of Chicago researchers turned discarded bio-oil char into graphite; 8 hours of cooling made crystals 5 times thicker and over 15 times wider

September 21, 2026

Discarded bio-oil char (representative image).

US researchers have developed a method to convert plant waste into high-quality graphite. This breakthrough offers a potential domestic source for a critical battery component. The new process involves slow cooling of biochar, creating larger graphite crystals. This sustainable alternative could reduce reliance on imported graphite for electronics. Further development is needed to scale up production and lower costs for commercial use.


David Awschalom wins global breakthrough of the Year Award for interdisciplinary work in molecular and protein qubits

September 21, 2026

Benjamin Soloway, a University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) quantum PhD candidate in David Awschalom’s lab, and Jacob Feder, a former student of Awschalom and Peter Maurer, were co-first authors of a paper about pro

Award by Berlin-based Falling Walls Foundation honors high-risk, multi-field leap across quantum, biology, and chemistry.


Free UChicago public lectures celebrate 50 years of discovery with talks on the origins of the universe, dark matter, gravitational waves, and particle physics

September 15, 2026

Aurora over south pole telescope

Half a century ago, scientists at the University of Chicago's Enrico Fermi Institute helped invent a new way to study the universe: by treating the Big Bang itself as a laboratory to explore nature at energy scales unreachable on earth. This fall, nine of the researchers who carry that legacy forward will share what those fifty years have uncovered — from the invisible matter holding galaxies together to the gravitational ripples of colliding black holes.

The series of free public talks by UChicago scientists, “The Compton Lectures: 50 Years of Discovery,” run every Saturday from Oct. 3 through Dec. 5 at 11 a.m. in the Kersten Physics Teaching Center.
 


Dark matter experiment catches quietest neutrinos ever measured

September 14, 2026

This photograph shows the dry interior of a large water tank, which when filled shields the massive xenon-flooded detector of the XENONnT dark matter experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy.

In its hunt for dark matter, the XENONnT experiment has detected the rare, feeble glow of neutrinos smacking into electrons.


Helium lifts new quantum computing concept

September 14, 2026

University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Physics Department Assoc. Prof. Jacob Covey led a team turning helium’s low mass into a new blueprint for the next generation of fermionic quantum computers.

Breakthrough from a team led by Jacob Covey, associate professor in the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Department of Physics, turns helium-3’s low mass into a quantum resource.