News: Faculty

Quanta Magazine coverage of UChicago condensed matter physicists Prof. Vincenzo Vitelli, postdoc Ryo Hanai, and Prof. Peter Littlewood, who study the mathematical objects called exceptional points that have been found to control phase transitions in nonreciprocal systems.

A new result is stirring the debate around WIMPs, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. Astrophysicist Dan Hooper comments on the search for WIMPs underground, suggesting the COSINE-100 experiment “is the nail in the coffin” of dark matter interpretations from the DAMA/LIBRA, which claimed to have spotted the elusive dark matter particle in 2017.

University of Chicago Professor Emeritus Eugene Parker accepted the Crafoord Prize in Astronomy on Nov. 9 at a small reception at his home. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prestigious prize in 2020 for Parker's "pioneering and fundamental studies of the solar wind and magnetic fields from stellar to galactic scales."

Neubauer Family Assistant Professor Sarah King, Dept. of Chemistry, is among 36 researchers receiving Air Force Office of Scientific Research Awards. A three-year grant of $450,000 will support her project, “Enhancing MXene catalysis on the nanoscale.”

A new multi-institutional study led by University of Chicago Prof. Nick Feamster will build new AI and data science tools to monitor and detect internet censorship, develop new statistical techniques to identify censorship with greater levels of confidence, and ultimately create a “weather map” for certain types of nation-state interference and control of online information.

Professor Daniel Holz, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, comments on the latest bounty of 35 events reported via gravitational wave detections, including patterns in black hole mergers.

Prof. David Awschalom discusses the quantum revolution on WBEZ 91.5 FM Chicago prior to the opening of the fourth annual Chicago Quantum Summit.

Laura Gagliardi, the Richard and Kathy Leventhal Professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been elected Foreign Member of the Italian National Academy, called Academia Nazionale Dei Lincei. This is an august body of scholars, whose Vice-President is Giorgio Parisi, recipient of the recent Nobel in physics.

Asst. Prof. Blase Ur, Department of Computer Science, discusses the meaning of the ‘metaverse’ on WTTW, in light of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebranding his company as Meta in an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future — what Zuckerberg calls the 'metaverse.'

Laura Gagliardi, the Richard and Kathy Leventhal Professor in chemistry, and a team of scientists developed a device to extract water out of air. The breakthrough can work even in dry climates like deserts, and could have implications for water shortages associated with climate change.

Prof. David Schuster, Department of Physics, comments on why demonstrating quantum error correction is a necessity for building useful quantum computers.

An international team of scientists using the Gemini Observatory telescope in Chile has found a way to measure the amount of both water and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a planet in another solar system, roughly 340 light years away.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to create materials that can move and block heat, use a massive accelerator to analyze dust from an asteroid, and build wearable devices for signing ASL and playing piano.

Four complementary analyses released by the international MicroBooNE collaboration at Fermi National Laboratory show the same thing: no sign of the theoretical particle known as the sterile neutrino. Instead, the results align with the Standard Model of Particle Physics prediction: there are only three kinds of neutrinos.

Two members of the Physical Sciences Division are among those who will be honored in the American Physical Society’s Spring 2022 Prizes and Awards. IMSI Director Phillip (Bo) Hammer was recognized as part of the TEAM-UP Task Force for the 2022 Excellence in Physics Education Award. Prof. Giulia Galli of molecular engineering and chemistry was recognized with the 2022 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics.