News: Faculty

PSD news and honors were among the University of Chicago’s historic 2022 highlights. Read more about Eugene Parker (1927-2022), addressing digital disparities, expanding the Chicago quantum network, and the first inaugural South Side Science Festival.

Guangbin Dong has been named the first Weldon G. Brown Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the College.

This month PSD researchers were featured in the news for climate research findings that the Southern Hemisphere is stormier than the Northern, creating a living smartwatch that runs on slime, and seminal contributions to the development of a quantum internet.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was the first to successfully replicate the process of how the sun makes energy, on earth –nuclear fusion ignition. UChicago Astronomy & Astrophysics professor Dr. Don Lamb helped develop a computer code to do experiments on the kind of lasers like the one used to achieve fusion ignition.

As part of The Day Tomorrow Began, UChicago News explains the meaning of quantum internet—a network of quantum computers that will someday send, compute, and receive information encoded in quantum states.

Sidney Nagel, the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, is accepting the 2023 American Physical Society Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research. The award, sometimes referred to as the ‘lifetime achievement Oscar of physics,’ recognizes “contributions of the highest level that advance our knowledge and understanding of the physical universe in all its facets.”

Prof. Don Lamb comments on UChicago’s contribution to the net energy gain for nuclear fusion breakthrough achieved by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

Walter Massey, senior advisor to the president and emeritus trustee of the University of Chicago, former Morehouse College president emeritus and former Bank of America chairman, discusses being raised in segregated Mississippi, building the Giant Magellan Telescope and whether or not we're really alone in the universe. 

Prof. Robert Rosner was a guest on WTTW Chicago Tonight commenting on a breakthrough by researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. For the first time they produced more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it, something called net energy gain.

Prof. David Awschalom of physics was among 30 of the country’s best quantum scientists who met at the White House on Dec. 2 to discuss the global quantum race.

Fred Chong, the Seymour Goodman Professor in the Department of Computer Science, was elevated to IEEE Fellow in the organization’s 2023 class. The distinction was given to Chong for “contributions to the field of quantum computer architecture, compilation and optimization.”

In this Big Brains podcast episode with Prof. David Awschalom, Dept. of Physics, explore how foundational discoveries at UChicago have shaped quantum research.

Climate scientist Tiffany Shaw explains why the southern hemisphere is stormier than its northern neighbor. Also, the southern hemisphere is getting even stormier over time, whereas the north is not. This is consistent with what climate models simulate for a warming world.

A new study led by climate scientist Tiffany Shaw explains the Southern Hemisphere is stormier than the Northern, by about 24%, and asymmetry has increased since the 1980’s. Ocean circulation and the large mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere are the culprits.

Dept. of Chemistry Prof. Bozhi Tian’s artwork melds "scenes of nature with hints of technology, much as his research merges biological and synthetic systems." Read more about his artwork and research in UChicago Magazine.