News: Faculty

Recently, Central Europe and eastern North Carolina have been affected by devastating floods. Prof. Noboru Nakamura, from the Geophysical Sciences department, comments on the unusual environmental conditions in the United States.

UChicago professor and Nobel Prize winner Jack Szostak is the co-author of a new book titled Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest for Cosmic Life. In this new interview, Prof. Szostak and his co-author, astrophysicist Mario Livio, discuss the questions that fuel their scientific work.

In this opinion piece, Chemistry Prof. Jack W. Szostak discusses the mysteries behind the origins of life on Earth and how these questions can inform scientists' search for life elsewhere.

Prof. Scott A. Snyder has been appointed as the new Master of the Physical Sciences Collegiate Division. In a new interview, he shares insights into his research, his upcoming duties, and what has made his experience at UChicago unique.

Please welcome the faculty joining the Physical Sciences Division in the ’24–25 academic year.

SkAI Institute will develop AI tools and accelerate astronomy’s data-driven revolution.

A new $75 million investment in geoengineering research will analyze the efficacy of plans to artificially cool the planet. This initiative relates to the work and advocacy of UChicago Prof. David Keith, a leading figure in the field.

In a new video, the Beckman Foundation highlights the research of UChicago Asst. Professor Sarah King in dynamic spectroscopy. King was a recipient of the 2020 Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Program award.

The second edition of TIME100 AI showcases some of the most influential new leaders in AI research and technology. Featured in this year's list is UChicago's Computer Science professor Ben Zhao, the inventor of Nightshade, a program that helps protect artists' work from AI scraping.

Scientists' understanding of the universe is ever-evolving, and recent research has tackled some of the biggest questions in cosmology. Professor Wendy Freedman's work is among these landmark developments, using data from the James Webb Space Telescope to challenge the existence of the Hubble tension.
 

A long-awaited study of the cosmic expansion rate suggests that when it comes to the Hubble tension, cosmologists are still missing something. The results of UChicago Prof. Wendy Freedman's new measurements of the cosmic expansion rate might reveal that the Hubble tension is not real.
 

UChicago President Paul Alivisatos was honored this week in Norway as one of the winners of the 2024 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. He shared the award with Prof. Chad Mirkin of Northwestern and Prof. Robert Langer of MIT.

In a new paper, a UChicago PME-led team of researchers from UChicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and University of Illinois Chicago used defect-embedded colloidal nanocrystals to create a perfect mixture of tiny solids in solution, which presents a better way to integrate quantum technologies. 

On August 16, stakeholders from academia, national labs, and industry—ranging from major corporations to startups—gathered for the soft launch of the Energy Transition Network, a new collaboration aimed at shifting the world away from fossil fuels in a safe, rapid, and cost-effective manner. Led by Professors Shirley Meng and Laura Gagliardi, the project will leverage Chicago’s existing resources to transform the region into a central hub of education, innovation, and startups focused on environmental issues.

Tong Lan, a graduate student with the Bryan Dickinson lab, is first author of a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society that presents breakthrough research on covalent macrocyclic peptides. This work is essential for the development of more effective and targeted cancer treatments.