News: Faculty

To address inequitable internet access, California is preparing to fund an ambitious broadband project. However, advocates are concerned about the reliability of the maps that will determine the allocation of these funds. In Illinois, as similar initiatives are proposed, Alexis Schrubbe, Director of the Internet Equity Initiative, has helped develop an internet speed testing tool to assist residents' challenges to the state's broadband map.

On Wednesday, July 10, at the IDM conference in L’Aquila, Italy, the XENONnT collaboration announced the first measurement of low-energy nuclear recoils from neutrinos produced by nuclear reactions inside the sun.

The University of Chicago and Chicago State University deepened their partnership Monday when the universities’ respective presidents, Paul Alivisatos and Zaldwaynaka “Z” Scott, signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding. The agreement aims to strengthen mutually beneficial collaborations between the two institutions in the physical, social, biological, and data sciences with an emphasis on education, research, employment pathway programs, and civic engagement.

The Preceptorship Program began in 2022 as part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the University and City Colleges. The partnership aims to strengthen STEM education and career opportunities and create a more diverse field of professionals entering the sciences.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of Goeppert Mayer’s publication of the nuclear shell model. The 2024 Nuclear Structure Conference at Argonne will showcase recent experimental and theoretical advances and highlight Maria Goeppert Mayer's contribution to nuclear physics.

Four Physical Sciences Division faculty members have received distinguished service professorships or named professorships. Congratulations, Profs. Archer, Farb, Kim, and Krishnan!

Scientists have long known that melting glaciers contribute significantly to rising sea levels. However, the complex ways they move deep within are not fully understood, a process critical to understanding this melting. Two MIT researchers, including incoming GeoSci Asst. Prof. Meghana Ranganathan, have created the first usable model to analyze movements across the Antarctic Ice Sheet, looking at how ice flows in the glacier’s core.

CacheGen, developed by researchers from the University of Chicago, Stanford, and Microsoft, and led by UChicago computer scientist Junchen Jiang, promises to revolutionize LLM efficiency by addressing the critical challenge of processing long contexts.

University of Chicago chemists in Sarah King's lab have announced a new way to image antiferroelectric materials, which could one day lead to new types of technology. 

UChicago geologist Clara Blättler spent two months at sea extracting rock cores to recreate the history of climate.

Enabled by a U.S. Department of Energy program, a collaboration of scientists from Fermilab, UChicago, NOIRLab, and other institutions demonstrated that skipper-CCD detectors can be utilized to improve cosmology research.

A CBS Saturday Morning video discusses a farmer participating in an unusual experiment to help a farm thrive in rising temperatures. GeoSci Asst. Prof. Clara Blättler comments, starting at 2:25.

Researchers at UChicago Pritzker Molecular Engineering and UChicago Physics plan to use a $1.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to develop an entirely new method of engineering superconductors for quantum computers and other high-tech applications.

In this Scientific American article, mathematicians, including associate professor Ewain Gwynne, picked the most dazzling, thought-provoking, and compelling equations they know.

Brave research program or potentially dangerous foray into solar geoengineering? UChicago President Alivisatos and numerous PSD professors discuss the topic in this Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article.