News: Faculty

2022

Summer reading recommendations from UChicago faculty

July 11, 2022

A woman is peering at a shelf of books in a library

Teaching award winners select books that explore climate change, colonialism and more—including physics professor David Schmitz recommending The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age by David Schwartz.


BigBrains Podcast: Extreme heat waves: Why are they surging? with Noboru Nakamura

July 8, 2022

Noboru Nakamura

Paul Rand interviewed Prof. Noboru Nakamura of the Department of the Geophysical Sciences about extreme heat waves for the UChicago BigBrains podcast.


UChicago scientists invent ‘quantum flute’ that can make particles of light move together

July 8, 2022

A metal quantum device with holes snaking in a line, known as a quantum flute

A new “quantum flute” experiment by University of Chicago physicists could point the way towards new quantum technology. The holes create different wavelengths, akin to ‘notes’ on a flute, that can be used to encode quantum information.


Scientists announced the discovery of the Higgs boson 10 years ago. What’s next?

July 8, 2022

Large Hadron Collider

University of Chicago scientists helped built parts of the calorimeter at the Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS experiment. Ten years later after the experiment detected the Higgs boson, physicists reflect on what there is still to learn about and from the Higgs particle.


Robert J. Zimmer steps down from position as University of Chicago chancellor

July 8, 2022

Robert Zimmer

The University of Chicago announced that Robert J. Zimmer will step down from his role as chancellor to focus on his health. A visionary leader in mathematics and higher education, he is the Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Mathematics and the College and former Chairman of Mathematics.


CERN’s Large Hadron Collider scientists reveal new particle discovery as accelerator research resumes

July 6, 2022

Scientists in CERN's facilities

Upgrades to CERN’s Large Hadron Collider could help scientists discover more new particles and gain better understanding of dark matter.


Lee C. Teng, eminent physicist, 1926-2022

July 1, 2022

Lee Chang-Li Teng, a theoretical physicist who contributed to and designed many particle-accelerator-based projects around the globe, and University of Chicago alumnus, died June 24.


Direct photo-oxidation of methane to methanol over a mono-iron hydroxyl site

July 1, 2022

Wenbin Lin

Prof. Wenbin Lin and researcher Zhe Li co-authored new research identifying a path to drive the direct photosynthesis of methanol.


PSD in the News - June 22

June 30, 2022

PSD against a white and turquoise background

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to understand why Mars dried out, expand and activate the Chicagoland quantum network, and analyze samples from asteroid Ryugu collected by Hayabusa2.


Booth podcast with Prof. Ben Zhao, What are the ethics of facial recognition technology?

June 27, 2022

Ben Zhao

In an interdisciplinary discussion hosted by Chicago Booth Review, UChicago scholars Wilma A. Bainbridge and Alexander Todorov join Prof. Ben Zhao of computer science to discuss biases relating to faces and the implications of facial recognition technology.


Prof. Yanjing Li receives Under-40 Innovators Award from DAC

June 23, 2022

Yanjing Li

Asst. Prof. Yanjing Li of the Dept. of Computer Science will be one of four researchers to receive the 2022 Under-40 Innovators Award from the annual Design Automation Conference in July in San Francisco, an industry event focused on the automation of electronic chips to systems.


Computer Science professors Bill Fefferman and Chenhao Tan receive Google Research Scholar Awards

June 23, 2022

Bill Fefferman and Chenhao Tan

Computer Science faculty Bill Fefferman and Chenhao Tan received 
Google Research Scholar Awards for projects in quantum computing and AI text models.


Computer Science Chair Michael Franklin part of SIGMOD Award-winning team

June 23, 2022

Mike Franklin

Liew Family Chair of Computer Science Michael Franklin was one of a large group of researchers and open source developers who received the 2022 ACM SIGMOD Systems Award for their work on the popular Apache Spark system.


Solar wind: What is it and how does it affect Earth?

June 22, 2022

Image of solar winds. Solar wind is continually released from the sun's outermost atmosphere.

Solar wind is composed of charged particles and the sun’s magnetic field and is continually released from our star. Explore the phenomenon discovered by Professor Emeritus Eugene Parker, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.


John Schiffer, nuclear physicist, 1930-2022 

June 21, 2022

John Schiffer sits at his desk in 1987 with an open notebook.

John Schiffer, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Chicago and former director of the Physics Division at Argonne, died on June 6. Over a career spanning nearly 70 years, Schiffer contributed to research on nuclear structure, crystalline beams, and neutrinoless double beta decay, and he played a key role in the development of a spectrometer concept that is now part of several radioactive ion beam facilities.