News: Faculty

The Doomsday Clock was set at 89 seconds to midnight, the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight in its 78-year history. 

The Doomsday Clock’s time is set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board (SASB) in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes nine Nobel Laureates. Factors included nuclear weapons threats, the climate crisis, biological threats, and disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).

Yamuna Krishnan, the Louis Block Professor of Chemistry and the College, has received the 2025 Marian and Stuart Rice Research Award. The Divisional honor provides unrestricted seed funds for intellectually exciting and innovative research ventures that enable new research directions.

Krishnan has pioneered the application of DNA nanotechnology to cell biology, deploying nanodevices as fluorescent reporters, thereby revealing the chemistry within sub-compartments of cells called organelles.

Kexin Pei is a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Computer Science. His research interest lies at the intersection of security, software engineering, and machine learning.

UChicago chemist Laura Gagliardi and a collaborator at the University of Minnesota have developed and refined a theory that makes it feasible to study larger quantum systems. Now, they have advanced that theory with a new method that achieves high accuracy without the steep computational cost of other advanced methods.

Observations with the South Pole Telescope have revealed an independent addition to the biggest problem in cosmology. Tom Crawford, a UChicago astronomy Research Professor, is co-author of the study.

Distinguished scientist remembered for groundbreaking research, tireless teaching and mentorship.

Fox Local news story about the California wildfires features atmospheric scientist Elisabeth Moyer.

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.