News: Faculty

Of the 31 Nobel Prize-winning Manhattan Project scientists, 12 had UChicago ties, including Maria Goeppert Mayer.

Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

University of Chicago professor of computational and applied mathematics Lek-Heng Lim has been awarded the 2023 Vannevar Bush Fellowship, the U.S. Department of Defense’s most prestigious award for basic research. It provides $3 million in funding to support transformative, “blue-sky” research at the limits of today’s technology.

Computer scientist Ben Zhao says it’s “almost impossible” for AI to rise to the challenge of snuffing out AI-generated reviews because bot-created reviews are often indistinguishable from human ones.

In a video interview, astrophysicist Don Lamb discusses key takeaways from "Oppenheimer."

Astrophysicist Daniel Holz comments on the discussions and calculations over the issue of atmospheric ignition, saying "you don’t often talk in certainties...you talk in probabilities. If you haven’t done the experiment, you are hesitant to say, ‘This is impossible. It will never happen.’ … It was good to think it through.”

A Scientific American article describes the Lost Women of Science series and the launch of Lost Women of the Manhattan Project, sharing the stories of some women who worked on the atomic bomb, including Leona Woods and the team at UChicago's Metallurgical Laboratory.

Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

UChicago biophysicists from the Department of Physics and James Franck Institute discover that the way cells grow and multiply—normally considered part of the same process—are regulated separately.

Image courtesy John Devany

There were at least 19 Black scientists and technicians who worked on the Manhattan Project, including mathematician J. Ernest Wilkins, the youngest student ever admitted to the University of Chicago at 13 years old who at 21 joined UChicago's Met Lab to research plutonium, and UChicago alums Moddie Daniel Taylor and Jasper Jeffries, whose scientific contributions were crucial to the Manhattan Project.

Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

"Oppenheimer" director explains that he attributed the calculation contribution of the Trinity Test to Albert Einstein rather than Arthur Holly Compton, who directed an outpost of the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago, because Einstein was more recognizable.

Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

Professor of statistics and computer science Rebecca Willett says that in regulating AI's use in automated weapons, it's important not to lose sight of the humans behind it, adding that "this is one of the reasons that the U.N. is looking at this...there really needs to be international repercussions so that a company based in one country can’t destroy another country without violating international agreements. Real enforceable regulation can make things better and safer.”

Researchers, including UChicago beamline scientist Vitali Prakapenka, have combined X-ray and laser techniques to illuminate the origin of mysterious deep-Earth structures.

In this audio segment, atmospheric scientist Elisabeth Moyer discusses bad air quality that has affected the Chicago region this summer.

Geophysical sciences professor David Archer says underground climate change is not the same as what we think of as climate change in the atmosphere, which is largely driven by greenhouse gases and has far-reaching effects, adding that “calling it climate change seems like a bit of a coattail thing.”

In an audio piece, Physics chair Peter Littlewood discusses the legacy of the Manhattan Project on scientific research.

Photo by Robert Kozloff

UChicago chemists, including Gregory Voth, use simulation to reveal key mechanism in microtubule growth.