News: Faculty

In a Wall Street Journal, Robert Rosner comments on today's Nobel Prize in Physics, saying the winners have "basically created a tool that allows you to look at phenomena and timescales that we’ve never been able to explore before."

In a Business Insider article, computer scientist Ben Zhao says the explosion in generative AI has sparked a "race to the bottom" as companies cut expenses and lay off low-level art roles, adding that "there's a lot of actual replacement going on, but many companies are just using generative AI as a way to argue for downsizing, to try to drive down costs and maximize profits."

An Economist article by Prof. David Keith discusses oil company investments into carbon capture technology.

A New Yorker article mentions the work of two UChicago chemists--Stanley Miller and Harold Urey (shown right)--in the 1950s who conducted research on the building blocks of life.

Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

The National Science Foundation has awarded UChicago’s M-STAR Center of Chemical Innovation program $1.8 million as a Phase 1 Research Center. M-STAR, which is short for MXene Synthesis, Tunability and Reactivity, will be designed as a incubator of MXene study and a major nexus for materials science research.

Department of Energy national labs are laying groundwork for a potential multi-billion dollar initiative to develop artificial intelligence tools for scientific and security applications, leveraging its advanced computing capabilities. Computer scientist and head of Argonne’s Computing, Environment, and Life Sciences Directorate Rick Stevens participated in the Senate-wide briefing.

In a Wired article, GeoSci assoc. prof. Elisabeth Moyer discusses the impact of climate change on precipitation, saying, “the very physics that gives us the greenhouse effect also makes the planet shed more of this energy by evaporation. And because whatever goes up must come down, that means we also get more rain.”

GeoSci associate professor Elisabeth Moyer says "a cheap battery would remove the biggest hurdle to a renewables transition,” adding that the materials availability is also still an issue and the technology does ultimately generate waste.

Please welcome the faculty joining the Physical Sciences Division in the ’23–24 academic year.

UChicago investigators have made progress with the synthesis of novel compounds, hybrid MXenes, that combine organic and inorganic materials, claims a new paper authored by The Talapin Group that was recently published in Nature Chemistry.

JumpMod is a compact, wearable backpack that uses vertical force feedback to create the feeling of perceived jumping and landing. The untethered nature of the device has the potential to scale these full-body sensations for at-home use– a problem currently unsolved.

Forbes article details the partnership between UChicago and Northwestern for the launch of the new National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology, the first of its kind in the US.

Computer scientist Marshini Chetty and CS PhD student Jake Chanenson comment on the disparities in cyber data protection for schools compared to banks and other for-profit businesses in an article for The 74.

New institute will be an international hub focused on fundamental questions.

Image of a developing fruit fly eye courtesy of R. Carthew

A Forbes article announces that UChicago has received a $15.5 million grant from the NSF to launch the NSF Physics Frontiers Center for Living Systems. Prof. Margaret Gardel, who will lead the center, says, "we aim to establish a new field of physics that focuses on how living matter adapts to its environment on timescales ranging from milliseconds to billions of years.”