News: Faculty

UChicago scientists have developed a new "hook and slide" method where they can insert atoms within an already existing carbon framework. The innovation comes from a paper recently published in Science, by Rui Zhang, a fifth-year graduate student with the Guangbin Dong Lab. This new strategy developed by Zhang, with assistance from undergraduate Tingting Yu, promises to optimize medicinal chemistry.

Image by Skrypnykov Dmytro/Shutterstock

Chemists Daniel Gibney, David Mazziotti, and Jan-Niklas Boyn invented a new way to allow computers to simulate certain quantum mechanical effects in complex electronic materials with far less effort.

UChicago teaching award winners, including Michael Gladders, ​​Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Quantrell Award winner, share their selections for the holidays.

Prof. John Carlstrom discusses funding for CMB-S4, which, he says, would scrutinize the cosmic microwave background for evidence that the newborn universe underwent an exponential growth spurt called inflation.

Of a moratorium on building nuclear power plants in Illinois coming to an end, Prof. Robert Rosner says in a Chicago Tribune article, "There’s no one waiting here to start building a nuclear power plant as soon as the law changes."

P5 report includes UChicago, Fermilab experiments to study neutrinos, cosmic microwave background.

Jet streams circulate around the world. A new study by GS Prof. Tiffany Shaw and National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist Osamu Miyawaki finds fast jet stream winds (those in dark red in the figure) will get even faster over time as climate change accelerates.

Research by UChicago scientists, including Chemistry Prof. Chuan He, suggests that the nutrient called TVA could have potential as a nutritional supplement to complement clinical treatments for cancer.

Together, a startup co-founded by CS Assoc. Prof. Ce Zhang creating open-source generative AI and AI model development infrastructure, announced that it closed a $102.5 million Series A funding round.

Scientists are fascinated by cosmic rays because they can tell us about space—where they came from and what they encountered along the way—as well as the makeup of the galaxy and the universe. Read the UChicago Explainer Series to learn all about cosmic rays.

Research led by postdoctoral scholar Hojin Kim, Prof. Stuart Rowan in Chemistry and PME, and Prof. Heinrich Jaeger in Physics and JFI on the science behind non-Newtonian fluids could lead to applications ranging from clump-free paint to wearable protective gear.

Dozens of articles feature Astrophysics postdoc Rafael Luque's study describing the discovery of six planets orbiting a bright star in perfect resonance 100 light-years from Earth. Explore a few of those articles sampled here.

In a Forbes article, Astro Prof. John Carlstrom discusses the significance of the international CMB-S4 telescope project being designed to examine and map ancient cosmic microwave background radiation involving 400 scientists from more than 20 countries.

Solar geoengineering technology holds possibilities and pitfalls, says David Keith, professor of Geophysical Sciences and founding director of the Climate Systems Engineering Initiative at UChicago.

In a USA Today article, Assoc. Prof. Marshini Chetty discusses Meta Pixel's tracking efforts on sites required for college applications, saying you could make the argument that these educational sites are “just the same as any other site,” but noting that dealing with kids raises bigger questions about tracking on the web: “Why is there the Meta Pixel? Why are there session recorders?” she said. “What is the place of that on these sites?" Doctoral Candidate Jake Chanenson says, “Some sort of comprehensive federal privacy regulation would be helpful...the last privacy act we had was in the ‘90s"