News: Faculty

University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos announced today that Lia Merminga has decided to step down from her role as director of Fermilab. Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor of Physics Young-Kee Kim will act as the interim director of Fermilab until a permanent replacement is found. Professor Kim’s tenure at the University of Chicago has spanned more than 20 years, and she served as deputy director of Fermilab from 2006 to 2013. 

Stuart Alan Rice, Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Chemistry and the James Franck Institute, and former dean of the Physical Sciences Division, died on December 22, 2024.

When William Irvine’s team put tiny magnetic particles in a fluid-filled chamber and spun them around, something unexpected happened. They began to flock together, splitting and merging like a school of fish. When they put lots of those particles in to swim, the suspension became a new phase of matter.

Two PSD faculty members have received named professorships. Hening Lin has been named the James and Karen Frank Family Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Chemistry and the College, and Rebecca Willett has been named the first Worah Family Professor in the Wallman Society of Fellows in the Departments of Statistics and Computer Science and the College.

We may be on the cusp of quantum supremacy. But what does that actually mean? Bill Fefferman, assistant professor of computer science, weighs in.

A trio of scientists from UChicago and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has put forth a new model that pushes the terrestrial biosphere's lifetime out to 1.7 billion years.

Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too dangerous, biologists said. 

“The consequences could be globally disastrous,” said Jack Szostak, who helped write a 299-page technical report on the risks of the research.

The energy-devouring technology is giving new life to fossil fuels. CS professor Andrew Chien comments.

Wendy Freedman shares her standout discovery of the year.

UChicago retrospective article features PSD breakthroughs and accolades.

Researchers from Computer Science and DSI have received a $900,000 sub-award for their critical contributions to the NSF SafeInsights project, which aims to build a transformative infrastructure for inclusive education research at a national scale.

University of Chicago Computer Science Seymour Goodman Professor Fred Chong is part of a national team building software to manage quantum noise, an increasingly relevant problem due to the rapid development of quantum computing technologies.

Fourth-year PhD student Kelly Wagman, in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and the Greater Chatham Initiative, develops a community-based app that bridges the gap between the residents’ and the scientists’ needs for flood-reporting resources and data.

When mixing disciplines, there are some subjects that are much more readily paired—psychology and biology or visual arts and photography. However, one physical science course at the University of Chicago seeks to combine three subjects that aren’t a natural fit on the surface. “The Chemistry of Artists' Materials,” taught by Assistant Instructional Professor Hannah Lant, blends together art, history and science.

Scientists from UChicago created a new way to study snoRNAs, showing they may serve a surprisingly broad range of functions across many cell types.